


Doctor's Orders

by jongnugget



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Medical, Comedy, Doctors & Physicians, Light Angst, M/M, Romance, kyungsoo is grumpy as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-10-26 00:42:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20733425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jongnugget/pseuds/jongnugget
Summary: "I work 8 hours a day in the hospital, 4 in the clinic, 6 I'm on call, and the other 6 I use to catch my beauty sleep. I don't havetimefor dates."





	1. -1-

**Author's Note:**

>   
In which Kyungsoo is a tired doctor, and Jongin is cluelessly annoying.   

> 
>   
I'm so sorry, i suck at descriptions dfjkghdg  

> 
> ****  
  
DISCLAIMER  
  

> 
> I did try to do research and to make it sound as believable and authentic as possible, but please do keep in mind that I am NOT a doctor, I am NOT a physician or a nurse. Meaning, chances are that a lot of the medicine-related things written in this story are incorrect.
> 
> If you are a doctor/med student and you're reading this, I apologize beforehand for the cringe. 
> 
> ****  
WARNING  

> 
> This story is taking place mostly in hospitals, describing not so pleasant situations. It includes (may include in the future) scenes depicting illnesses, needles, surgeries, patient deaths, and other medical procedures, so proceed at your own risk. If you think you can't handle reading things like that, maybe this isn't the story for you. 
> 
> With all that being said, imagine Kyungsoo in a white doctor's coat, and enjoy~

“Exam room 2.”

Kyungsoo grabbed the file from the nurse, trying to contain his sigh.

He’d been on clinic duty for the last three hours and his head was positively on fire – not because there were any complications, not because of challenging cases, nothing of that sort.

Sadly.

It was because of the patients - the walk in clinic of the teaching hospital didn’t exactly have a preliminary round for the people who came to see him.

Now, Kyungsoo was a doctor. He knew not to complain when people came to seek help or counsel for their health – it was his job to give it to them. But some of them were making it so _hard_.

He pushed the door of the exam room open, eyes shooting up to look at the patient sitting on the edge of the bed. It was a middle-aged man, probably 45, big build, a prominent frown.

Kyungsoo took in a deep breath before forcing his professional smile out.

“Good morning, I’m Doctor Do and you must be,” he looked down to the file in his hands. “Mr. Choi?”

The man mumbled some sort of greeting back, and Kyungsoo vaguely noticed how he wasn’t really looking at him in the eyes. That prominent frown had a hint of panic lacing it.

“What brings you here then, Mr. Choi?”

“I have-...” Kyungsoo blinked not so patiently when the man’s voice drifted off. “Do I _have_ to say this out loud again? I told the nurse everything half an hour ago.”

Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows a little, before opening the patient’s file again. His eyes raked over the words, scanning the information summarized by the nurse.

Ah.

“You’ve had rectal bleeding.” Kyungsoo said, eyes shooting back up towards the patient whose face was becoming a pale shade of pink. Kyungsoo contained the sigh, before tapping the file. His mouth moved automatically. “No need to be embarrassed, Mr. Choi. This is a hospital. How long has it been happening?”

“Three weeks maybe? A little longer.” Kyungsoo squinted his eyes, ready to grill the man in his spot for not coming to a hospital sooner, but he continued speaking. “Didn’t pay much attention to it at first. But when it got worse I went to my doctor and they told me to come see an oncologist.”

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows shot up again as he looked down at the file, for entirely different reasons. Some of his colleagues…

“…right.”

“Do I have cancer?!”

Kyungsoo pursed his lips, eyes shooting back towards the information on the file. No family history with cancer. No vomiting or nausea.

“Have you been having any constipation? Any change in the frequency of bowel movements?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Any family history with cancer?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What about itching? Does it feel uncomfortable?”

“Yes,” the man cautiously said. “Is that bad?”

Kyungsoo took in a deep breath, before closing the file.

“No. It’s very good.”

“Excuse me?!”

“You don’t have colon cancer, sir. You have hemorrhoids.”

The man looked at him with an expression of suspicion. Of relief that he wasn’t quite letting himself trust yet.

“How’d you know? You haven’t even examined me.”

Kyungsoo just smiled his tight-lipped smile again. He reached out for his pager, fingers quickly pressing the numbers.

“I am afraid I don’t have the time to examine you right now, but my colleague will be here right away to do that, so don’t you worry.” Kyungsoo mumbled, grabbing a pen and scribbling down the prescription.

In less than a minute there was an urgent knock on the door, before it was pushed open and a tall young man appeared in his sight. His white doctor coat was flying behind him, his brown hair was unruly, his tie was barely hanging on to the clip. He had an alarmed look in his eyes as he scanned the room, before his eyebrow twitched.

“Beeper went off,” Chanyeol said almost breathlessly with his deep voice.

“Yes,” Kyungsoo pushed himself off the wall, walking towards the tall man, handing him the patient’s file and the prescription. “Mr. Choi here is in a need of a rectal exam.”

_Hemorrhoids_, Kyungsoo mouthed in the same time he saw Chanyeol’s face twisting in realization that he had, in fact, been played.

“Of course,” Chanyeol said somewhat tightly, his eyes squinting at Kyungsoo as he took the file. He leaned closer to him, voice reducing to a whisper. “You said it was an emergency!”

“It _is_ an emergency. It’s valuable medical training, _fellow_.” Kyungsoo pushed his coat back, hands sliding in the pockets of his slacks as he threw a look back towards the patient on the bed. “Take your pants off, Mr. Choi, get comfortable. And don’t worry. Doctor Park knows what he’s doing.”

The look Chanyeol threw him before he escaped the exam room was priceless.

* * *

“You said it was an emergency!”

Kyungsoo didn’t even bother looking up from the tray he was filling with food.

Lunch break. His favourite time of the day.

Not because he got to eat – it was a hospital cafeteria, it was no Michelin restaurant so it wasn’t the food he was excited for. Not even because he got to meet some of his friends while catching a quick bite.

No.

He loved lunch break because lunch break meant no more clinic hours for the day.

Which also meant that even Chanyeol’s complaining was tolerable.

“You can’t always call me to do the things you don’t want to do,” Chanyeol said, grabbing a tray for himself and trailing after Kyungsoo. “I’m also a doctor. I was with a patient.”

“Get over it.”

Kyungsoo decided to ignore Chanyeol’s grumbling as he tried to pick a sandwich. Everything looked equally unappetizing, so he just pointed to the closest one.

They made their way to the open terrace of the cafeteria – the best way for them to soak up some vitamin D before the days became shorter and before winter started.

There were already two people sitting on their regular table, both wearing their lab coats, both eating. Kyungsoo headed in their direction without a second though.

“Besides, why do you never call me in for the _interesting_ cases?” Chanyeol asked. “Why am I always stuck with the shitty jobs?”

“First of all, there are no interesting cases in the clinic. Second of all, bloody jobs would have been a better joke.”

“I’ll _bloody_ punch you in the face next time you make me deal with rectums, how’s that for a joke.”

Chanyeol slammed his tray down on the table with a little too much force, just for show.

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes at the theatrics when the two other doctors looked up.

“Well don’t _you_ look peachy,” Baekhyun remarked, eyebrows shooting up. “What happened?”

“He made me finger a man.”

“Yeah?” Baekhyun’s eyebrows shot up as his eyes flicked towards him for a second before pinning back on Chanyeol again. He leaned over the table with a sleazy smirk. “You any good at it?”

“We’re _eating_.” Suho said from the side, an unimpressed tone to his voice. Like he was used to this sort of conversations. Maybe he was.

Then again, everybody was used to Doctor Byun’s antics.

“Anyways I was just telling Baekhyun I finally got to use a magnet stick today,” Suho leaned over the table and Kyungsoo blinked at him. “Some kid had a Monopoly figurine stuck so far up its nose, the forceps wouldn’t fit. So I finally got to use magnets for the first time.”

“What, you’ve never used it before?” Chanyeol asked, somewhat confused. His blinked towards Baekhyun and Kyungsoo for confirmation before continuing. “Come on. You’re a paediatrician. You should be using it on a daily basis with idiotic kids who stick stuff up their noses.”

“He’s right, you know,” Kyungsoo agreed quietly, unwrapping the sandwich with a shrug. “Even I’ve used one before, in the clinic.”

“What for? To take a stick out of your own ass?”

Kyungsoo smirked in his sandwich at Suho’s little outburst. It was rare to see the paediatrician get annoyed. Usually, he was all smiles and giggles and overly exaggerated optimism. Maybe because he was stuck working with children every day.

“Can we _please_ not talk about asses?”

“Jesus, Chanyeol, _get over it_!”

“Can we stop talking about work altogether and focus on me for a second?” Baekhyun interrupted, lifting his fork and pointing it towards each and every one of them, his eyes sharp and inquiring. “I texted you all last weekend about the football game this Friday night and only Chanyeol has bothered to confirm.”

“Of course he did,” Kyungsoo mumbled under his breath, earning himself a nudge from the fellow. He then leaned back in his chair. “You said it starts at 6?”

“Yes, so make sure you’re off work for the night.”

“Alright,” Kyungsoo nodded, eyeing his sandwich with a little more interest than before. Baekhyun’s smile was genuinely pleased, before he turned his accusing fork towards Suho.

“I can’t be sure. What if there’s an emergency?”

“Hence, the ER. There are other doctors in this hospital,” Baekhyun scoffed.

Suho still didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he looked around the table slowly. Kyungsoo shrugged when the paediatrician’s eyes lingered on him for a couple seconds.

For Kyungsoo, it was an easy call to make – he didn’t really get a lot of free time. He was always working. The chance to go out with guys from work for a football game, maybe some drinks and trashy food – it sounded unreal. Somewhat very distant, like he had forgotten what it felt like to just go out and have fun.

He could use the break.

“Oh, come on, you old man,” Baekhyun nudged the other doctor in the shoulder. “Jongdae’s coming too. Maybe some of the residents-“

Baekhyun’s rambles were interrupted by a loud beeping sound. Kyungsoo’s head shot up when he watched the doctor look down to the side, his pitch-black hair falling over his eyes as he checked his emergency pager.

He watched as Baekhyun let out a sigh before shoving the rest of his sandwich in his mouth in one quick bite.

“Gotta go. Duty calls.” Baekhyun stood up from his chair. He raised his eyebrows towards Suho. “I expect a text from you in the next half an hour. I have plans to make, booze to buy. And you!”

Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows when he realized Baekhyun was looking at him now, a somewhat less playful, more professional, somewhat concerned look in his eyes.

“I’ll come by your office later today for a consult. I got a patient and-…well, long story. I think you might have to join in on this case.”

Kyungsoo nodded slowly and then watched Baekhyun hurrying away with the pager in his hand.

If Baekhyun was saying that he needed a consult, then Kyungsoo was prone to believe that maybe it really was a case for his department. Unlike the case of the guy with haemorrhoids that had just been redirected to the clinic by a family doctor who was probably too lazy to deal with the tests themselves.

Kyungsoo sighed, looking down at his plain sandwich, before leaning back in the chair, absentmindedly listening to Chanyeol and Suho talking about some TV show he wasn’t following, wondering _why_ doctors liked playing hot potato so much.

He had another 8 hours at work to figure out some answer to his own questions.

* * *

“Tuberculoma.”

Kyungsoo looked up when Baekhyun dropped the files on his desk. The doctor had his hands in his pockets. A little frown was pulling his lips back.

“Or, at least, that’s what I thought it was.”

Kyungsoo pulled the files of Baekhyun’s patient closer to himself.

His eyes were scanning the page and the charts while Baekhyun seated himself in the chair on the other side of the desk and started talking.

“She checked in the hospital with a 2-day history of vomiting and a week of frontal headaches. She said they were waking her up from sleep and that they’d get even worse in the morning. In the last months others symptoms she’s shown are lethargy, reduced appetite, weight loss and intermittent fevers. And cough. Plus, I was treating her for tuberculosis a few months ago.”

Kyungsoo looked up from the charts with one raised eyebrow.

“You’re sure it wasn’t drug resistant?”

“She was _fine_.” Baekhyun insisted, slouching back in the chair. “Or so I thought, but she’s been coughing again and, well…”

When Baekhyun pointed his hand towards the folder, Kyungsoo opened it again and pulled out the scans. He could feel Baekhyun’s eyes on his back as he stood up and attached them to the whiteboard.

His eyebrows knitted at the sight of the images on the scans. He threw an almost incredulous look back towards Baekhyun.

The other doctor just sighed.

“The CT scan of her lungs showed nothing out of the ordinary, maybe just some light inflammation, but that didn’t explain any of the other symptoms she’d been showing. So I scheduled a CT brain and it showed multiple ring-enhancing lesions with significant surrounding cerebral oedema noted in both hemispheres which were highly suggestive of an infective process. And she _did_ have a history with tuberculosis.”

“Of course,” Kyungsoo turned his back to the whiteboard. “A doctor for infectious diseases would think it’s an infection.”

Baekhyun crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“I started a treatment for tuberculoma with broad-spectrum antibiotics and steroids.”

“And let me guess,” Kyungsoo turned to look back at the scans on his whiteboard. “It didn’t work.”

“It didn’t.”

Kyungsoo pursed his lips, nodding once.

“It’s a tumor.”

Baekhyun remained silent. Kyungsoo stared at the scans of the patient’s brain, at that solid mass in the picture that was not supposed to be there. He nodded again, mostly to himself.

“We’ll need to run some more tests. Schedule a MRI scan for her tomorrow, and make sure you alert Minseok about this too-“

“A neurosurgeon?!”

Kyungsoo threw a look towards Baekhyun.

“Yes, a neurosurgeon. Did you think the tumor will just jump off her brain and leave by itself?”

“No, but you don’t even have conclusive test results yet.”

“Well if it isn’t tuberculoma, and if it isn’t a tumor, what else could appear as a black mass in the middle of a lovely brain picture?” Kyungsoo set his jaw. “Talk to Minseok and send him a copy of the MRI scan tomorrow. We need to know if he can perform surgery or if he’ll only be able to do a biopsy. In any case, I need to know what he can do before I make plans for radiation therapy or chemotherapy.”

Baekhyun heaved a sigh, before nodding and standing up.

“I’ll go tell management that I transferred the case to you.”

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo mumbled, eyes trained back on the brain scans.

“Kyungsoo?”

“Hm.”

“There’s family waiting for her. They’re waiting to hear a diagnosis.”

Kyungsoo breathed in deeply, biting his lower lip. A certain heave appeared in his heart – the heave that always appeared in his heart whenever he had to break bad news to already hopeless and desperate people about their loved ones.

He doubted it was a feeling that would ever go away. Even so, it was his job, and even though he couldn’t stop that heavy feeling in his heart, he could get used to it.

He already was.

He breathed out slowly as he reached out to pull the scans from the whiteboard. He picked up the patient’s files, before turning to Baekhyun and nodding briefly.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

“You’re late, Doctor Do,” the woman behind the reception of the free clinic mentioned. Sooyoung was it? Sooyeon? He wasn’t sure.

“Bad traffic.”

The look in her eyes indicated that she wasn’t buying it.

“I’ll have to send the report to management, doctor. You’ll need to cover the missed hour next week.”

“Or you can do me a favour and change the hour on the check in sheet?”

Sooyoung or Sooyeon didn’t say anything, just slid the folder towards him for him to sign. He sighed out when he saw she hadn’t changed the hour. Damn snitches everywhere.

That’s why he was questioning himself at least five times a day why he still was working in the teaching hospital. The pay was good, the pay was great actually. He had a lot of patients. His oncology department was getting a lot of funding, their equipment was great, his colleagues were remarkable physicians.

Yet, he was stuck with four hours of clinic duty every day. The routine of clinic duty – that’s something he didn’t look forward to.

Four hours of whining children, people lying they hadn’t had sex when they were showing symptoms for sexually transmitted diseases, self-made doctors with diplomas from Google and teens faking colds just so they could get a doctor’s note to skip school.

“_Fine_.”

He let out a defeated breath, reaching out to grab the first patient’s file from the Sooyoung or Sooyeon’s hand. She smiled and Kyungsoo tried not to roll his eyes.

“Exam room three.”

* * *

The patient was in the middle of chugging down water – almost an entire bottle ever since Kyungsoo passed by him earlier in the lobby. It was a large man, very much so, above middle age.

He had come to the clinic because of moments of blurry vision in the past two weeks.

Kyungsoo threw one quick look towards the file, before closing it and leaning back against the table.

“You’re diabetic.”

“Yes,” the man nodded with a gruff. “Been taking my insulin regularly for the past ten years. What does that have to do with blurry vision?”

“See, obesity is believed to account for over 80 percent of the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Now, I cannot be sure that’s your condition until I run definitive tests but-”

“Type 2 diabetes?” the patient echoed.

“Yes. Type 2 diabetes is a progressive condition in which the body becomes resistant to the normal effects of insulin. It’s associated with modifiable lifestyle risk factors.”

“Obesity runs in my family.”

Kyungsoo breathed in to stop himself from blurting out a rather rude reply about nobody running in that man’s family, fingers tapping on the file.

“We will make some tests. A glucose test, a simple blood test too. Just to be sure, before I prescribe any medicine. But I would advise you to cut out all fast food, sugar and refined carbs from your diet, focus on a low-carb diet and try to avoid sedentary behaviour. Even if the problem now isn’t connected to your diabetes, it _will_ help you prevent that from becoming worse.”

Kyungsoo saw the man opening his mouth and he could read the intention on his face to fight, so he beat him to it with a small smile and a note.

“Give this to the nurse at the reception, they will show you to a doctor who will draw your blood. The results will be out by tomorrow, so we will get back to you!”

Kyungsoo gave the patient roughly three seconds to react, and when he didn‘t, he bid a goodbye and headed out of the exam room.

He threw a quick look down to his watch. Just twelve more minutes of clinic duty.

Twelve more minutes.

“You can do this,” Kyungsoo mumbled to himself before heading for the reception again.

Sooyoung or Sooyeon was already holding up a file for him to catch with a rather malicious grab. He just wanted to get this over with.

When he opened the door, he blinked twice before entering.

After over three hours of clinic duty, the guy sitting on the bed was a sight for sore eyes.

He was young, tousled brown hair and a chiselled jaw, pretty almond shaped eyes blinking towards him when he heard the door opening, plump lips parted. His skin was tanned, a beautiful colour that was shining under the fluorescents in the exam room.

He was wearing a black sweater, and black jeans. In Kyungsoo’s very humble and very human opinion, the guy also had a great body – lean and strong – to compliment that gorgeous face. He was dangling his feet off the bed before Kyungsoo closed the door. That’s when the guy on the bed also stopped moving and straightened up a little instead.

Kyungsoo almost let out a disappointed sight.

A guy this young, this handsome, with no apparent accidental cuts on the hand, or with no immediate complaints – chances were, it was a STD. Kyungsoo knew for a fact that if a person looked like _that_ they were bound to get some action.

“Hello, Mr.-…“ Kyungsoo looked down to the patient’s file. _Kim Jongin_. “Mr. Kim. I am Doctor Do. How can I help you today?”

Kyungsoo waited as the guy on the bed looked at him, and simply blinked. He was silent for a few moments, with his eyes squinting, like he was assessing Kyungsoo, before he finally spoke.

“I want to get some tests done.”

His voice was sweet – deep and almost husky, but in the same time soft. It sounded like hot chocolate on a quiet winter night, Kyungsoo’s brain made a useless remark, before he snapped himself back to reality.

“Alright,” Kyungsoo’s voice drifted, and he raised his eyebrows. “But there are hundreds of different medical tests, so I’ll need you to be a little bit more specific.”

The patient on the table got a surprisingly serious look on his face.

“I want to get tested for cancer.”

Kyungsoo’s breath got caught in his throat for a few moments as the look on Kim Jongin’s face got more persistent with every passing second.

“Okay,” he ended up saying, his eyebrows knitting on his forehead. “Okay, um…do you have any reason to believe you might have cancer? Any pain in your body?”

“No. No pain. Although, my back does feel stiffer than usual lately.”

“Yeah well you can get a massage for that,” Kyungsoo’s eyebrows knitted even further together as he looked at the young patient sitting in front of him. He looked quite serious about his requests, and he also looked sane. “Any skin changes? Darker or yellowish spots on your skin? Any itching or excessive hair growth?”

“No,” the man in front of him shook his head.

Kyungsoo took in a deep breath, as he looked at the patient again. He was staring at him expectantly with his large, beautiful eyes, not looking away. Kyungsoo breathed out.

“Look, I’m shooting blindly here. There are a lot of different types of cancer, and they all have different symptoms. I need something to work with,” he said, shaking his head and looking down to the open patient file, his eyes scanning the information on the page. “Why is a 24-year-old man, seemingly in good health, set on testing for cancer? You must have a reason, so what is it?”

Kim Jongin shifted on the bed, shrugging a little and directing his eyes towards the floor as he started speaking.

“I lost some weight. I didn’t really pay attention to it at first but I noticed when my jeans became baggy on me.” He started speaking and Kyungsoo scribbled down _weight loss_ on the patient chart. “And I get bad headaches sometimes. Usually late at night.”

“You get these a lot?”

“Not really often, but it happens.”

Kyungsoo nodded, scribbling that down as well. He added a little question mark on the side.

“Anything else?”

“Uh, yes. Fatigue.” Jongin nodded and Kyungsoo looked up to him, waiting for a clarification. “I read that fatigue’s one of the symptoms for tumours and cancer. I’ve been tired lately.”

_Oh Lord, give me strength_, Kyungsoo thought to himself when he inhaled sharply and closed the patient file, not even bothering to write that down.

His _favourite_ type of patients. The ones who thought that the little knowledge they acquired from a quick google search was more reliable than a consultation with actual doctors.

“May I ask what you do?”

“I study.” Jongin fired right away. “I’m in college. Kind of.”

Kyungsoo didn’t care to dwell on the hesitation in the man’s voice, it was none of his business whether a random kid was failing his classes or not. He was a doctor, not an employer.

“And you’ve been busy with schoolwork lately, I suppose?”

“Quite.”

“There you go,” Kyungsoo shrugged. “You’re not sick, you’re just a normal college student. That explains everything, even the stiff back.”

“But…no!” Jongin said, a certain sharpness to his eyes. Stubbornness. “I really meant it. I’ve been feeling tired sometimes lately.”

“Cancer related fatigue is extreme, Mr. Kim. It doesn’t go away, even after rest.” Kyungsoo set his own jaw in reply to the boy’s stubborn look. “You get tired because you’re human. I recommend at least seven hours of sleep and a cup of coffee a day.”

“So you’re saying nothing’s wrong with me?”

Kyungsoo wished _he_ had a coffee right now. His head was starting to hurt from this. And to think he thought he had a _normal_ patient in the clinic for once.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Jongin. You can leave.”

_Please_ _leave_, his mind corrected, but Kyungsoo shushed it and tried to maintain a neutrally friendly face.

“No,” Jongin said again, with a little frown. “No, you _have_ to help me. You took an oath to help people. The uh-…hipolathic oath.”

“Hippocratic Oath.”

“Yeah, that one. So help me.”

“You do know it’s not an actual oath, right?” Kyungsoo sighed out. It was getting harder to not show his annoyance.

“It isn’t?” the boy in front of him seemed genuinely surprised for a very short moment, before shaking his head and before his face morphed back into a mask of stubbornness. “Never mind. You _have_ to help me. You can’t just send me away without running any tests, without doing anything. What if something _is_ wrong with me?”

Kyungsoo stilled down for a moment. He was on that fine line between wanting to fight himself for not forcing Chanyeol to cover his clinic hours, and wanting to choke out the patient.

Self-taught and stubborn as a donkey. Great combination.

He also did not have the power to deny the patient those tests that he wanted. It was his _job_.

“Fine,” Kyungsoo smiled tightly. “You can go to the lab, give some blood and urine samples. We will run some tests and then I will be able to give you definitive answers.”

“Blood samples?”

Kyungsoo looked up when he heard the previously stubborn and confident voice sounding smaller and almost pathetically scared. Kim Jongin’s face seemed a little lighter, he seemed paler.

“Is that a problem?”

“Needles.”

Ah. Self-taught, stubborn, _and_ scared of needles. Kyungsoo was pretty sure there was a higher power up there laughing at him right now.

“How about some scans?” Jongin asked, his eyes all confident and stubborn again. “CT scans or MRI scans.”

Kyungsoo was speechless for a few moments, as he just shook his head.

“Those are…very advanced machines, Mr. Kim.”

“I want those definitive answers, Doctor Do.”

He had another stare down with the patient.

“They’re _very_ expensive.”

“I know. I’ll pay.”

Kyungsoo squinted his eyes a little, before pulling out a pen again.

“Any surgical pins or implants that I should know of?”

“What?”

He shot his eyes up to that golden skinned beauty sitting in front of him.

“Any metal in your body that would get ripped out from the magnets in the scan?”

“Uh…no.”

“Great. You’re getting an MRI scan and a very fat bill.”

Kyungsoo didn’t think he’d ever seen a patient looking this pleased to find out whether he’s potentially sick and paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars for it.

Some people…

He flashed a quick look towards his clock. Clinic hours were over.

Thank God, it was lunch time.

* * *

“I have very good news,” Kyungsoo smiled as he walked into the room of his patient in the hospital. “It is a tumor, but it is a benign tumor.”

“A benign tumor?” the lady asked, confusion lacing her voice. “What does that mean?”

“It means it doesn’t invade nearby tissue or spread to other parts of the body the way cancer can. It’s just an abnormal growth of cells that serves no purpose.”

The relief that spread on the woman’s face was priceless – the very reason Kyungsoo was doing what he did. The reason he had become a doctor.

“A benign tumor doesn’t really require a treatment. We just need to keep an eye on it to make sure it causes no problems. It would be a good idea, however, to get it removed so we are sure it won’t cause complications by pressing against blood vessels or vital organs.” Kyungsoo handed the patient a folder. “Surgery is a good way to remove it. In your case, the risks are close to none. All information you need, along with the consent forms, are in here. Please read everything carefully and sign if you decide you want to get the surgery done.”

Kyungsoo was about to move away, but a bony hand caught his and he looked back down to the lady on the hospital bed. She was smiling, tears in her eyes.

“Thank you, Dr. Do.”

He felt a surge of warmth in his chest, as he patted her hand with his own, a soft smile pulling at his lips.

* * *

Kyungsoo was in the middle of reading academical research from an American teaching hospital, when he heard a knock on his door.

He tore his eyes away from the computer screen to look at the glass door.

The boy was standing there – Kim Jongin, wearing a black shirt and a blazer that accentuated his wide shoulders. He was hesitantly looking at him through the glass, until Kyungsoo let out a breath and motioned for him to come in.

“Good afternoon,” the patient greeted him first and Kyungsoo nodded vaguely in response.

“Please, take a seat.”

“So,” Jongin started, uncertainty and hoarseness in his voice. He sniffed. “You got my scans?”

Kyungsoo nodded, bringing his hands together on the desk. He jugged his chin to the whiteboard, where various scans were hanging.

Jongin followed his gaze, his eyes widening a little at the sight of the pictures illuminated by the sharp, white light, making the images clear.

He approached the whiteboard and Kyungsoo followed his movements. He watched as the young man took in the sight of the scans, blinking cluelessly, before eventually turning towards him.

“What am I looking at?”

“Your brain,” Kyungsoo pushed himself up from his chair, approaching the whiteboard too. He skipped past the full body scans of the boy, before finally stopping next to him and the images of his brain from the MRI scan. He raised an eyebrow when the younger sniffed next to him. “See? Clear as water.”

“So it’s…good?”

Kyungsoo let out a softer breath, nodding.

“You’re healthy as a horse. Thick skulled too.” That was a lie. Jongin’s skull looked just as average as any other skull. Its packaging was above average, he had to admit, but there was no reason for him to not poke fun of the boy and his stubbornness. “I’m not surprised.”

Jongin just threw him a quick look, his shoulders slumping down a little.

“So everything’s alright.”

Kyungsoo nodded.

“As far as I can see, everything’s looking good.” Kyungsoo said and watched the expression of Jongin becoming somewhat calmer. He twisted his hands in front of his chest. “Except for your lungs.”

The patient blinked at him quickly.

“My lungs?”

Kyungsoo vaguely pointed to the scan of the man’s lungs.

“There seems to be a very minor inflammation, and judging by the fact that you keep sniffing, I’m gonna say you’re probably catching a cold.” Kyungsoo pulled out a pen from his front pocket and started writing a prescription. “One Benadryl every five hours for the runny nose. And a cough syrup to stop your cough.”

“I don’t have a cough.”

“Yet.”

Kyungsoo handed Jongin the prescription that he took with another weak sniff and a little nod.

“Thanks.”

Kyungsoo waited patiently as Jongin started moving away. He had almost reached the door, when he turned around again.

His eyebrows were knitted, and he was looking at the ground with a rather serious look in his deep, brown eyes.

“Are those scans reliable, doctor?”

Kyungsoo’s gaze flashed to the whiteboard, before he nodded.

“Quite. We didn’t inject you with a contrast agent because we couldn’t run the blood tests, but your scans are looking very clear. The chances of a tumor in the scanned organs not showing up are minimal.”

“What about my blood?” Jongin asked, eyes finally looking up and finding Kyungsoo’s. “Those scans don’t check the blood, do they?”

Kyungsoo felt his shoulders tensing at the intent stare of the younger man.

“No. They don’t.”

Jongin went silent then. He bit on his lower lip and his eyes started dancing around the room.

Kyungsoo cocked his head to the side as he watched the fidgeting of the man in front of himself, the way he was worriedly looking around, before eventually managing a weak nod.

“I want-…I want to get the blood tests done too.”

Kyungsoo’s own eyebrows furrowed a little. For someone who had initially refused blood tests because of a simple fear of needles, for someone who had jumped straight to expensive scans, to go back and insist on getting a test they were afraid of…this guy really was serious.

“If it’s leukemia, or-…or Hodgkin’s, or another type of blood cancer, those tests will show it, right?”

Kyungsoo let out a dumbfounded breath.

“Yes, but-…I really don’t think it’s necessary, Mr. Kim-“

“Jongin.”

“Jongin. I don’t think you need those tests. You don’t show any other symptoms of blood cancers and this-“

“I _want_ to get it done.”

Kyungsoo’s fingers slid against the edge of his desk, before he sunk down in his chair. He pushed it back a little, and he looked back at the patient. At Jongin, who had that familiar look of stubbornness in his eyes. His perfect jaw was set, as he waited for him to speak.

“You seem way too determined to be dying,” Kyungsoo shook his head. “May I ask why? Do you have a big midterm coming or something?”

“Very funny,” Jongin deadpanned.

“No, seriously. If you need a doctor’s note just say so and I’ll write you one. No need to go through something you’re clearly scared of.”

“I’m more scared of dying.”

Kyungsoo breathed in deeply as he leaned back in his chair, a hand raising up to rub his neck. It felt stiff after all those hours of work, showing the exhaustion that was slowly starting to creep up on him. He was _tired_.

“Leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s….how did you even come up with these? Do you have a magic 8 ball?”

“No,” Jongin said loudly, through a wheeze. He sniffed again. “I read about it. And how do you know it’s not any of these? Do _you_ have a magic 8 ball?”

“No. Just 8 years of medical training.” Kyungsoo rubbed his neck again before straightening. “Why did you even read the symptoms of different cancers in the first place? Don’t college kids have better things to do?”

Jongin remained silent then, he just looked away from him for a brief moment, before boring his eyes back in him. They weren’t as insistent now, not as hard as before.

“Run the test. Please.” He said, like he was asking him for a favour.

Kyungsoo squinted his eyes a little, looking for any trace of doubt on Jongin’s face. He didn’t find any.

He pushed himself up from his chair again.

“Alright.”

Jongin was particularly silent as he followed after him through the corridors of the hospital, back to the lower floor where the exam rooms were.

“There you are! I was looking for you!” he heard a familiar, deep voice calling for him and he reached out to stop the doors of the elevator from closing before Chanyeol could get in too. The tall fellow didn’t seem to care that Jongin was standing behind them, his eyes shooting between the two of them, as he shoved some scans and papers in Kyungsoo’s hands. “Minseok just go back to us. The results from the biopsy of Baekhyun’s patient are back. It _is_ cancer.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes flashed down to the reports, soaking in the information and almost bumping into a resident as they walked out of the elevator. He pursed his lips together.

“He says he can’t remove the entire tumor because of the location. If he tries, chances are he will damage some vital brain tissue.”

“I see,” Kyungsoo nodded. “We will remove as much of the tumor as possible. At least that way it will relieve some of her symptoms and it will lower the pressure on the brain. We’ll start her on chemotherapy after that. Get the consent forms signed and schedule a surgery as soon as possible.”

“Alright.”

“And get Sehun to go with you.”

“Sehun?” Chanyeol asked, confusion lacing his voice. “What, the resident?”

“He was bothering me last week with questions about brain tumors. Maybe now that he sees one himself he’ll figure out what those graphs in his books meant.”

“I thought he was doing his residency in cardiology.”

“That’s what I thought too.” Kyungsoo let out a quiet groan, before returning the files to Chanyeol. “Guess he’s a curious one. The worst type of residents.”

Kyungsoo threw a knowing look towards Chanyeol. Infamous for starting his residency in nephrology, before switching to surgery, before finally deciding he wanted to work with cancer. Fun stuff. 

“Right.” Chanyeol took the papers back from Kyungsoo. “By the way, Baekhyun wants to know if you’re still up for tomorrow.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes shot towards the oncology fellow.

“I’m with a patient.”

“Oh,” Chanyeol mumbled, finally noting the fact that Jongin was still trailing after the two of them. Kyungsoo saw the surprise on the tall doctor’s face as he eyed Jongin curtly. Then he looked back at him. “Need help examining _this_ one?”

Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes. Park Chanyeol, what an idiot.

“Go do your job.”

He was pretty sure he heard Chanyeol’s muffled laughter as they walked away from him.

Jongin was silently looking at him when they entered a free exam room and Kyungsoo headed for the cupboard with the new needles and equipment he needed to draw blood.

“He works for you?” Kyungsoo’s eyes flashed towards Jongin when he heard his honey voice filling the silent room. “The tall doctor?”

“Doctor Park? He doesn’t work for me,” Kyungsoo replied, getting the glass container ready. He started assembling the needle to the container. “He’s doing his fellowship in our hospital.”

Kyungsoo threw a look back over his shoulder towards Jongin.

“Please remove your jacket and roll up your sleeve.”

He heard rustling behind himself as he pulled a tourniquet and cotton swabs He sat in the chair in front of Jongin, eyes focusing on the arm that was stretched out in his direction. Jongin’s forearms were lean and strong, and his skin was smooth and beautiful. Kyungsoo caught his hand and turned it around, eyes locating the veins right away.

“Alright,” Kyungsoo mumbled, as he reached out to put the tourniquet above Jongin’s elbow. He tightened it and briefly looked up. Jongin looked a little paler, eyes shooting around the room but avoiding the table with the laid-out needles. Kyungsoo pursed his lips a little in sympathy, as he reached out to clean his own hands with alcohol rub, before pulling the sterile gloves over his hands.

Jongin’s breathing seemed a little shallow, accompanied by the occasional sniffs.

“It helps not to think about it too hard,” he said softly as he reached out to grab a cotton swab, disinfecting Jongin’s skin. The boy looked down to his hand when he felt the cold invasion on his skin. Kyungsoo smiled. “It helps to not look either.”

Kyungsoo picked up the needle and threw a look towards the patient. Jongin was back to staring at the upper corners of the room, his mouth slightly agape. He was still very much pale.

“So you’re an oncologist.” He said suddenly, with a small voice, and Kyungsoo hummed. Some people needed a distraction.

“Yes,” he replied, eyes focused on the veins on Jongin’s hand again.

“And that other doctor, he’s your fellow oncologist, then?”

“That’s right,” Kyungsoo nodded. “Please form a fist with your hand.”

Jongin did so right away and the veins protruded a little more.

“So you’re technically his boss,” Jongin let out a little laugh and Kyungsoo heard the nervous shaking of his voice. At this point, the boy was talking just to distract himself from the fact that he was going to have a needle in his arm in a few seconds.

“I guess, if you look at it that way, I am.” Kyungsoo said, eyes flashing up for a second to make sure Jongin wasn’t looking. He had picked a slim needle, and he tried to get the optimal angle right as he entered the vein.

He heard a quiet hiss, but couldn’t look up to check Jongin’s face. Instead, he kept his eyes focused on the needle, and waited until he finally saw flood flow. He kept his fingers tight on Jongin’s forearm, keeping his arm in place as he reached up to undo the tourniquet as the blood started filling the container.

That’s when he finally allowed himself to look up. Jongin was very insistently looking at the ceiling. Kyungsoo smiled a crooked smile as he looked down to the glass. Just a few more seconds.

“So you’re a leading physician.” Jongin said and Kyungsoo’s eyes flashed towards his face again.

“That’s a very broad term. I’m the Head of the Oncology Department. Sometimes I am a leading physician for a case, and sometimes I work on cases with doctors from other departments if they need my consult.” Kyungsoo said, looking down and slowly withdrawing the needle. Jongin hissed quietly again, and Kyungsoo hurried to apply gentle pressure with a clean gauze and a cotton ball on his arm where he had removed the needle from. He looked up with a little, comforting smile. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Jongin finally dared look down. His face seemed to be regaining colour now that there wasn’t a needle stuck in his body anymore.

“It’s weird,” he ended up mumbling. “It freaks me out.”

“Hold this tight and apply light pressure,” Kyungsoo let Jongin hold the cotton. “And don’t bend your elbow.”

He turned around to throw away the needle and to seal the container with the obtained blood. He sat down to write a clear label for it, along with instructions for the laboratory.

“You’re the Head of the Oncology Department?” Jongin asked from behind him and Kyungsoo nodded while writing that he needed a Complete Blood Count and blood protein testing. “You look too young.”

“Younger than most, I suppose,” Kyungsoo said, before sealing everything in a bag, making sure it would reach the lab today. “But not young.”

“How old are you?”

Kyungsoo turned around to shoot Jongin a look.

What a peculiar and for the most part way too intrusive and annoying boy. Kyungsoo let out a breath as he shook his head.

“I’m 32.”

“That’s not old.”

“I never said I was old. I just said I wasn’t young.”

“Right.”

Kyungsoo tried not to roll his eyes as he turned to fill out the patient chart for the oddball that Kim Jongin was.

“I need you to fill out your address and contact information here after a minute,” Kyungsoo threw a look back to Jongin who was looking curiously at his arm and the cotton. “Don’t move it yet. Any family history with cancer?”

Kyungsoo looked back when he didn’t hear a reply. Jongin was staring down at the ground again, the fiercely sombre look back on his face.

He looked sad, so devastatingly sad, that Kyungsoo almost regretted asking.

He didn’t need to hear the reply out loud. It was all written on Jongin’s face.

“Yes.”

Kyungsoo looked away then. He knew that expression all too well. The expression of a person who had lost someone before. He saw that expression almost every day. The job of a doctor was not an easy one.

He threw a quick look towards the younger man again. That would explain his weird fixation with getting tested for everything, his determination to know everything.

And somehow, Kyungsoo understood it a little better now.

“Alright,” he said softly, picking up the package. “The lab results will be ready by tomorrow morning. I’m working again on Monday so you can come get them then.”

Jongin nodded, a certain haze to his eyes as he reached out for the pen to start filling out his information.

“Thank you.”

* * *

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOF okay my google search was starting to look very alarming hah
> 
> To summarize: Kyungsoo is an oncologist (cancer doctor), Baekhyun is a doctor for infectious diseases, Suho is a paediatrician (kids doctor), Chanyeol is a fellow in oncology, Sehun is a resident (aka studying to be a doctor), Minseok is a neurologist/neurosurgeon (brain doctor) and Jongin is obnoxious. The other members I will introduce in the next chapter :)
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this! I decided to post this story as a threeshot instead of a twoshot because the chapters were getting too long.
> 
> Please let me know what you think of the story so far, comments are always greatly appreciated ^^
> 
> Also i'm sorry if I wrote Kyungsoo way off and made him sound like the grumpiest, shittiest doctor to ever exist dkfughdg


	2. -2-

The mother was standing behind her child, hands firmly on the little boy’s shoulders. Every questioned Kyungsoo asked the kid with a measured smile, the mother replied to instead with urgency and almost hysteria.

“His ADHD is getting _worse_.” The woman insisted.

Kyungsoo was staring at the kid that was just sitting there silently. Funny.

They’d been in his office arguing (or at least, the mom was arguing, not leaving Kyungsoo the chance to speak) for at least fifteen minutes now, yet the kid was sitting silently, eyes bored in Kyungsoo with curiosity. He was focusing on him, and he wasn’t fidgeting in his place, just silently observing. He hadn’t interrupted their talking at all,

Not usual behaviour for an eight-year-old kid diagnosed with ADHD.

“With all due respect, he seems fine to me,” Kyungsoo said, looking back towards the mom who shot a look down to her son. The kid just blinked.

“Well he’s fine _now_. Maybe he’s shy in front of you. At home he keeps running around, being loud, sometimes he gets really, really impatient and then he would just abruptly stop.”

Kyungsoo straightened up and opened the patient file again. He shook his head a little at the general physician diagnosing this kid with ADHD when everything the mom was describing was simply normal behaviour for children. Annoying and loud. Seemed about right.

Kyungsoo’s eyes trailed back to the kid.

The little boy wasn’t staring at him anymore, he wasn’t staring up at the mom either. No, the kid wasn’t blinking. It was staring blankly with hazy eyes somewhere at the floor, its head bobbing back and forth systematically and rhythmically.

Kyungsoo squinted his eyes, as he reached out to hold the kid’s shoulder. He ignored whatever the mom started saying.

The kid didn’t look at him at the contact. Unaware of the touch or the talking.

Kyungsoo pursed his lips and didn’t move his eyes away from the kid until it eventually blinked the haze in its eyes away and looked at him again – just as curiously as before.

“Does this happen a lot?” Kyungsoo straightened up and turned towards the mom. “How often does he blank out like this?”

“Yeah, it happens sometimes,” the mom shook her head, confusion lacing her voice. “I just told you. He’s been daydreaming a lot. His doctor said it’s the ADHD.”

“It’s not ADHD,” Kyungsoo interrupted, eyebrows furrowing as he looked down towards the kid, then towards the mom. More and more confusion was spreading on her face. “We will need to run a EEG test, but this looks like absence seizures to me.”

“But-…he hasn’t been seizing. That’s impossible.”

“Absence seizures cause you to blank out or stare into space for a few seconds. They’re quite common for children this age.”

“Seizures?!” the mom echoed, sounding full of disbelief and doubt. “That’s…that’s just not right. IT’s ADHD!”

“Which often gets misdiagnosed when you see an incompetent doctor,” Kyungsoo’s eyes were a little harder on her as he pulled out his pen and started scribbling on his pad. “I’ll schedule an EEG for this afternoon.”

He finished writing everything down in the patient chart, before looking up. There was a panicked look in the mom’s eyes as she was holding her son and looking at Kyungsoo with a look full of questions and scare. He let out a breath.

“You have nothing to worry about. Those seizures are harmless, they usually completely disappear before puberty. The treatment is simple too, a low dose of anti-epilepsy drugs.”

Kyungsoo handed the charts to the mother.

“I’ll be working in the clinic tomorrow morning. You can come so we can discuss the results from the EEG test.”

He smiled a lopsided smile at the little nod of the dumbfounded woman, before turning around and leaving.

* * *

Kyungsoo didn’t think he’d ever been this tired in his entire life. It had been 9 hours of work straight since he arrived in the morning, no break, no moment to catch a breath. And it was Friday. He didn’t know how he’d have the strength to go out with his friends tonight when he was barely functioning now as it was.

But there was work to be done, cases to be solved, patients to be treated.

He kept throwing impatient looks towards every clock he passed by during the entire day.

And now he had a woman standing in front of him, teary, desperate. Kyungsoo breathed in deeply, trying his best to be as sensitive as possible.

“I’m afraid that your husband’s kidneys are failing.” He said quietly. “The anti-tumor antibiotics we are treating him with have started affecting his kidneys. They first started producing crystals that blocked the urine flow. Then they started damaging the cells.”

“So stop the antibiotics!” the woman whispered, fingers forming a fist so tight her knuckles were white.

Kyungsoo heard Chanyeol shifting behind him. Sehun, the resident, was standing one step behind him, silent and mum, not even daring to look up from the ground.

Kyungsoo breathed out slowly.

“We cannot stop the antibiotics. If we do, we might be able to get his kidneys to function again, but his condition will become worse. And in his case, we cannot allow the cancer cells to spread. That would be fatal.”

Kyungsoo’s lips pursed in sympathy when the woman buried her face in her hands, silent sobs filling the hallway of the ICU.

“So what…what can we do?”

“He’s going to need a kidney transplant.” Kyungsoo said, trying not to let the pity creep in his voice. “We can put him on the list, but-…I have to be completely honest with you, the chances of him receiving a kidney are very slim. He is no good condition, and even if he receives the kidney, the chances of him beating the cancer aren’t too high. I can’t lie in my reports, and when the committee reads the charts, it is likely they will rule against giving him a donor.”

The sobs became even more uncontrollable and Kyungsoo breathed out shakily, as he reached out to hold the woman’s shoulder for some sort of support. He waited there, throwing a quick look back to where Sehun was still very darkly inspecting the ground and where Chanyeol was chewing on his lower lip.

“What if-“ the woman looked up with a sniff. “What if I give him one of my kidneys?”

Kyungsoo blinked, eyebrows shooting up. He threw a quick look back to Chanyeol, who had decided to join Sehun in staring at the ground uselessly.

Kyungsoo pursed his lips, before raising another hand to put on the woman’s other shoulder.

“That is very admirable, but I’m afraid the chances of you two matching is one in ten thousand.”

“But I love him!”

_Right_, Kyungsoo thought grimly to himself, _true love. That’s how we match organs these days_.

He blinked when he realized the woman was staring at him, waiting for an actual reply.

“I’m afraid that’s not my area of expertise,” he ended up saying quietly, hands sliding down from her shoulders. “I will refer you to a nephrologist who will run the necessary tests. And in the meantime, I will send your husband’s files to the committee and put him on the kidney transplant waiting list.”

He watched as the woman nodded at him silently, a little shimmer of hope deep, deep down in her eyes. Kyungsoo didn’t have the heart to kill that hope.

Instead, he turned around and instructed Chanyeol to call the hospital’s nephrologist and arrange a meeting as soon as possible.

He threw one sympathetic glance towards the woman in the hallway, before walking away.

Maybe, sometimes a one in a ten thousand chance existed. He was going to root for them.

* * *

Kyungsoo was holding a chilly glass with nice whiskey, and he was talking excitedly to Minseok and Jongdae. It had been a while since he last had some time to actually sit down and chat with the other doctors and it had definitely been a pleasant surprise to see that Baekhyun had invited them out for football night too.

“A neurologist, an oncologist and a nephrologist sitting together at a bar,” Kyungsoo’s head whipped around when he heard the familiar and teasing voice of Baekhyun. “It’s like the start of a bad joke.”

Baekhyun was approaching them, wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans, so different from the suits and the lab coat Kyungsoo was used seeing him in. His smile was cocky. Two people were trailing after him – Chanyeol, who was a good head taller than him, towering over most of the people in the bar, and Yixing – a young fellow in Baekhyun’s department for infectious diseases.

“You’re late to your own party,” Minseok remarked, sharp eyes resembling the look of a cat. Baekhyun grinned a little, reaching out to grab the glass from Minseok’s hand. He took a sip from it before the neurologist could even protest.

“I like that you’re referring to it as my party. Gives me more power.”

“Forget it.”

Kyungsoo smiled at Yixing a little awkwardly – he didn’t know the fellow that well, they didn’t really cross paths much. He just knew the man always got superb reviews from patients for his attitude. Something about his cute dimple made even Kyungsoo feel at ease in his presence.

“Anyways, what were you guys talking about?” Baekhyun asked, seating himself casually next to them.

“The game. We were just making bets. 20 dollars on 2:1.”

“20 dollars?” Baekhyun echoed after Jongdae, a sneer in his voice. “You’re no fun. Make that 50 and I’ll think about joining.”

Kyungsoo leaned back in the chair of the bar then and swirled his whiskey around in the chilly glass as his friends started talking loudly and excitedly about the football game. There was still another hour to go before they had to go to the stadium, and they spent most of it just joking around and catching up. Actively avoiding hospital talk.

They all wanted a break from that.

They all needed it.

Time was passing, and the game was approaching, and suddenly Chanyeol asked where Suho was.

“Oh,” Baekhyun popped the straw of his cocktail out of his mouth. “He’s not coming.”

“What?!” Minseok sounded disappointed, but also confused. “Why not?”

Baekhyun shrugged.

“Measles.”

Kyungsoo choked on his whiskey. The alcohol made his throat burn. He blinked incredulously in Baekhyun’s direction.

“_What?!_”

Baekhyun seemed satisfied that he had managed to cause such a reaction by, after a quick look Kyungsoo realized, all the doctors sitting around him.

All, except for Yixing who just rolled his eyes.

“Parents brought in their kid in paediatrics, they thought it had a rash and a cold. High fever, cough, you know…all that jazz. So Suho’s stuck contaminating everything before an infection spreads in the hospital.”

“How old?” Minseok asked, eyebrows furrowed. Baekhyun shrugged.

“I don’t know. Like seven, I guess?”

“Anti-vaxxers?” Jongdae asked, scepticism already audible in his voice. Kyungsoo was already shaking his head in complete disappointment and done-ness with the world, even before Baekhyun nodded in confirmation.

“Some people will never learn,” Kyungsoo sighed out. “The only way they’ll realize they’re wrong is if you connect their child’s measles and they spell out ‘_My parents are fucking idiots’_.”

“Nice,” Chanyeol scoffed. “I’ll make sure Suho knows of that impeccable tactic to deal with patients as opposed to talking to them like they’re, you know, actual human beings.”

“Hey, I mean,” Minseok shrugged “If it works.”

“_Thank you,”_ Kyungsoo raised his glass towards the neurosurgeon.

They spent another half an hour just messing around and they were just about to get up from their seats and head to the stadium because of the crowd starting to form in the bar, when Kyungsoo heard something amidst all the voices and all the loud cheering of football fans around them.

“Doctor Do!”

He blinked quickly, thinking that his mind might have started playing tricks on him after the long day at work.

“Doctor Do, is that you?!”

Nope. Definitely no mind tricks. And by the time he realized he wasn’t hallucinating, it was already too late.

He turned around just to see Kim Jongin approaching, an intrigued smile pulling his plump lips back. He was wearing the blue jersey of the football team they were supporting, and he even had the colours on his face. His brown hair was falling softly over his eyes.

Kyungsoo squinted his eyes a little.

“Are you following me?”

Thank god the boy understood he was joking, because he just laughed a little, shaking his head. More of his brown hair fell over his eyes.

“No. Here for the game. What about you?”

“Contrary to popular belief, doctors _do_ have personal lives,” Kyungsoo jugged his chin towards the bunch of doctors sitting next to him. Jongin followed his gaze absentmindedly before he turned back to him. “We’re here for the game too.”

“That’s cool.”

Kyungsoo hummed, awkwardly shifting in his seat.

“So…Chelsea fan, huh?”

Jongin looked down to his blue jersey and laughed quietly.

“Ever since I can remember myself. What about you?” Jongin gave him a playful look. “Don’t tell me I have to switch doctors.”

“_Please_ switch doctors,” Kyungsoo said, raising an eyebrow at Jongin who just shrugged with a little bashful smile. Kyungsoo took a quick sip from his whiskey before finally setting the glass aside. “How’s your cold?”

“I’m feeling better,” Jongin said distractedly, eyes shooting back to the crowd. As an afterthought, he added, “Thanks.”

Kyungsoo followed his gaze back to the crowd. There were three boys standing there, wearing the same blue jersey, seemingly waiting for Jongin. Throwing funny looks towards Kyungsoo, probably wondering who he was.

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows shot up when he realized that his fellow doctors were giving Jongin the exact same look.

“You shouldn’t keep your friend waiting,” Kyungsoo said and Jongin nodded absentmindedly.

“Yeah…yeah, of course. Well,” Jongin shone him a smile and Kyungsoo basked in the sight of that beauty for the whole three seconds that it lasted. “I just came by to say hi. And, uh…have fun! At the game, I mean.”

“We will,” Kyungsoo nodded, trying not to look as awkward as he felt. “You and your friends too.”

Jongin waved his hand a little awkwardly as he started moving away. Kyungsoo let out a soft breath, and a little lopsided smile pulled his lips.

“I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Right. Monday. See you then.”

Kyungsoo was too busy staring at the retreating form of the younger man to realize that he had five pairs of eyes inquisitively bored in his back.

“Mmm,” Baekhyun was slurping the rest of his cocktail loudly, before finally setting the glass down and raising an eyebrow. “Who was _that_ fine piece of human?”

“Just a patient,” Kyungsoo shrugged, finally looking away.

“Yeah, right,” Chanyeol scoffed. “This is one of the few patients whose ass he didn’t allow me to finger.”

Baekhyun feigned absolute horror, as he turned to stare at Kyungsoo.

“Why would you do that, _you_ _monster_?!”

Kyungsoo mumbling a quiet _whatever_ under his breath. Yixing, Minseok and Jongdae seemed beyond confused, with Jongdae muttering something about needing a backstory.

Kyungsoo just rolled his eyes.

* * *

The high from a fun Friday night with his friends was still burning within him even when Monday rolled in. Somehow, after spending a somewhat quiet weekend, even clinic hours didn’t seem like a drag that morning.

Everything was, for once, going smoothly and pretty quickly. The patients were actually listening to him, he didn’t have to fight anybody. Everything was quite perfect.

_And_ the cafeteria was serving steak for lunch.

He supposed it was just his lucky day.

He was sitting in his office and going through his patients’ files, reviewing test results and checking progress on the treatments, his pager lying ruefully on his desk, surprisingly silent.

He didn’t realize how quickly the day was passing until he heard a knock on the glass doors. He startled at the sound interrupting the silence in his office, and he looked up.

Kim Jongin was standing there, looking just as glowing and handsome as the last time he’d seen him at the bar on Friday night. Kyungsoo gave him a little smile through the glass as he vaguely motioned for him to enter.

“Good afternoon,” Jongin greeted him quietly, hands fidgeting on his sides as he approached the desk.

“Hello. Please, take a seat.” 

Kyungsoo rolled his chair around when he saw Jongin finally sitting down, and he reached for the stack of folders on the side of his desk.

“Did you enjoy the game?” Kyungsoo asked, searching for the files that he needed.

“Yeah. It was a good victory,” Jongin seemed a little more at ease while talking about that. Kyungsoo nodded eagerly.

It had been a good game. 3:1. That had earned him 50 dollars from Baekhyun and another 80 from Jongdae and Chanyeol.

“I got the results from your blood tests earlier,” Kyungsoo said in the same time he finally found the tag that read _Kim Jongin_, pulling the files out and laying them down on the desk between him and Jongin. He opened it and pulled out the papers again. He checked the numbers again, just to make sure he wouldn’t get it confused with the results of another patient. He nodded, mostly to himself. “It’s a very good blood picture. Hemoglobin and hematocrit levels are looking just right. The white blood cell count is also perfectly normal.”

“Meaning?”

Kyungsoo looked over the sheet of paper with the test results with a softer look in his eyes.

“Meaning you don’t have cancer. You’re _fine_.”

Jongin blinked at him and just stared. For a couple of seconds, he just stared at him, before finally letting out a breath and leaning back in the chair.

Kyungsoo ran a tongue over his lips as he watched the reaction of the younger man. He nodded slowly, a hand rising up to rest at his chest. Then he nodded again. Letting out another breath. That one suspiciously sounded like laughter.

Relief was written all over his face.

Kyungsoo didn’t even realize he was smiling again, until he looked down at the lab results again.

“Platelet count is also average.” Kyungsoo wrinkled his nose a little as he lowered the paper. “Your red blood cell count is on the lower side but still very much within the normal range. That would explain why you were feeling tired.”

“I guess,” Jongin breathed out with his honey-like voice. “Why is it lower though?”

“There are many reasons for a lower red blood cell count,” Kyungsoo closed Jongin’s lab file and slid it towards him. “Side effects from medicine, chronic diseases. Yours, however, are within the normal range, and according to the ferritin test, your iron levels are a little lower than they should be so that is the reason for it.”

Jongin reached out to pull the files closer to himself.

Kyungsoo smiled at him, and vaguely wondered to himself for a second what exactly he was smiling so much for – was it because he was in a good mood? Was it the fact that this patient finally didn’t look like he was going to lose it? Probably a mix of the two.

“It isn’t alarming in any way, you don’t need medicine. Just increase your protein intake – red meat, chicken, fish. You’re not vegan, right?”

Jongin scoffed and Kyungsoo tried to hide his smirk as he looked down at his hands brought together on the desk.

“Good. So more proteins, more vitamin C foods. That should be about enough.”

Jongin nodded, his eyes lingering on the folder he was holding with his results.

Kyungsoo saw his eyebrows flinching a little, before the younger man looked up.

“Thank you, doctor,” he said. “For taking the time. I really appreciate it.”

Kyungsoo felt a little flash of guilt running through his chest upon hearing that. Guilt because he had been ready to send Jongin away from the moment he started talking in the clinic. Because he thought he was ridiculous.

But now, seeing that genuine gratitude on his face, and that genuine relief from moments ago – they were worth it. He didn’t regret making the time for those tests at all.

He reached out over the desk, hand stretched out – an invitation.

Jongin blinked up in surprise.

“Of course.”

Jongin’s palm, when it slid inside his for a firm handshake, was warm. His skin felt soft against Kyungsoo’s.

Their hands lingered together, as they wordlessly smiled at each other.

* * *

“Based on the test results I believe you have lupus,” Kyungsoo said. “It explains all your symptoms as well – the joint pain, the skin rashes.”

“Lupus,” she repeated before pursing her lips. “Is it treatable?”

Kyungsoo pursed his lips, looking down to the patient files, before looking down at the hospital bed where the girl was lying down, looking at him with anticipation.

“With the right medications, it’s _manageable_.”

Her nod was slow. Accepting.

Kyungsoo reached out to return the patient chart at the base of the bed.

“We’ll keep you here two more days, just to make sure you’re stabilized before we let you go home.”

“Alright.”

Kyungsoo threw her a small smile, before rounding the bed and escaping the room of the patient. As soon as he stepped out, a fury of black and white assaulted him from the side.

Sehun was waiting for him, his black clothes, the white coat. His hair was neatly styled up, his tie was perfectly attached to his shirt. His eyebrows were sharp and furrowed.

Kyungsoo almost let out a groan.

“What _again_?”

“I want to transfer to oncology.” Kyungsoo threw the resident a quick look. “I need the signature of the Head of Department before I can go in for an interview.”

“Why?”

“Because it looks more fun.”

Kyungsoo threw yet another quick look towards Sehun. What a weird kid.

“Fun?!” he let out a scoff. “Look, kid, if you’re looking for _fun_ in any medical field, then you chose the wrong career.”

Sehun made a face.

“Bad word choice. It seems more _interesting_.”

“Yeah, well, a lot of things are interesting. Being a professional chef sounds interesting, yet here I am, stuck working with sick people all day, every day.”

“It was your own choice.”

Kyungsoo wrinkled his nose a little. Sehun was right.

It was his own choice. Nobody forced him to go to college for 4 years, and then go to med school for another 4. Nobody forced him to do a 2-year residency in oncology. Nobody forced him to do another 2 years of diagnostics as a fellow. And certainly nobody forced him to become a practicing physician.

“Not everybody’s cut out to do what they want to do is my point,” Kyungsoo frowned, stopping in the middle of the hallway and throwing Sehun an assessing look. He set his jaw. “7-year-old presents with a lesion in upper tibia. X-ray shows radiolucent area with Codman’s triangle and Sunway appearance. Diagnosis?”

Sehun blinked at him.

“What?”

“What’s the problem with the kid? Quickly.”

“Uh-…uh…” Sehun’s eyebrows knitted even closer and Kyungsoo clicked his tongue.

“Aaaand, the kid’s dead.” Kyungsoo clicked his tongue and Sehun let out a breath, raising his hands a little. “Its bones just cracked from osteosarcoma.”

“What?” Sehun let out a huff as he started following after him again. “That’s unfair. First of all, I need to see lab results and do tests to be sure what it is. It’s protocol! Second of all, you didn’t even give me twenty seconds to think.”

“In the ER, you don’t get twenty seconds to think sometimes, and you certainly don’t get enough time to follow protocol.” Kyungsoo sighed out, hand resting on the glass door to his office. He threw Sehun a sympathetic look. “Listen, kid. You’re just in your first year of your residency. Think about what you really want to do and think about it _hard_. You don’t want to waste years doing something you’ll regret.”

“But-“

“If you’re really set on being an oncologist, then maybe try again next week. Read some books in the meantime, follow Chanyeol around and get a look at some actual cancer cases. It might change your mind.”

Sehun’s face was equal parts bright at being given an opportunity and solemn at the underlying darkness in Kyungsoo’s voice. He ended up quickly thanking him and then scurrying away down the hallway of the hospital, undoubtedly on his way to hunt down Chanyeol and stick to him like a band aid for the rest of the week.

Kyungsoo let an amused smirk pull his lips as he finally pushed the door of his office open and walked in.

* * *

The weeks passed. Cases came and went.

Life was becoming an unbearable routine of work, a microwaved dinner late at night, barely six hours of sleep, sometimes less, and then again.

It was a Tuesday morning and he was in his third hour of clinic duty, feeling borderline delirious, as he took yet another patient file from Sooyeon or Sooyoung. He headed towards the exam room.

An old lady was sitting on the bed, a very old lady, who blinked at him when he entered. Kyungsoo let out a quiet hum at the sight of her – he knew her. She’d been coming in a lot lately.

She had dementia, and came almost every week, at least once, to tell him about ‘new’ illnesses she had. Kyungsoo couldn’t do much. He could only sit there, listen to the lady as she said the same thing again and again every time, and in the end he could write her a prescription for the same medicine she was already taking.

“Mrs. Lee,” Kyungsoo smiled tiredly, ready to sit on the little stool in the corner and just zone out for fifteen minutes straight. “How have you been?”

The old lady just blinked at him again. She shrugged her frail shoulders.

“I have no idea.”

Kyungsoo could _swear_ he didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean to let out the loud laugh that traitorously escaped his lips.

But the moment it echoed in the room, he shut his mouth quickly, aware again of the fact that his patient was looking at him, looking beyond confused.

He could feel more laughter bubbling in his chest.

God, he was an asshole. And all this work was definitely messing his mind up. He needed a break before someone eventually punched him. At this rate, with his shitty doctor humour, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

He cleared his throat, trying to maintain a straight face.

“Sorry. Long day,” he ended up saying, before sitting down and setting the patient file aside. “Tell me, Mrs. Lee, how can I help you today?”

As expected, there was nothing new. Just the same rambles as last week, and the week before that, and the one before. 

Exactly fifteen minutes later, after writing the same prescription and sending Mrs. Lee away after calling her son to come pick her up, Kyungsoo found himself being handed yet another patient file. The way Sooyeon or Sooyoung kept them coming – it’s like there was an endless pile she kept pulling them out of. Kyungsoo sighed, eyeing the coffee machine at the end of the hallway. His best friend.

He wondered if Sooyeon or Sooyoung would let him have a fifteen minute break for a quick coffee without ratting him out to management.

He opened the door of the exam room to the sight of a young man sitting on the bed. He was wearing a shirt, the top button undone, golden skin peeking from underneath the black fabric as he looked up with his big eyes.

Those eyes only seemed to widen a little when they met his. Kyungsoo let out a breath.

“You’ve _got_ to be kidding me,” he ended up saying as he closed the door behind himself and threw a sharp look towards Jongin. His eyes were a little narrow.

“Uh, hi.” Jongin mumbled, shuffling awkwardly in his spot, as he eyed Kyungsoo. “I didn’t know you’d be working today.”

“I work every day,” Kyungsoo muttered, as he stepped forward, hands raising to twist in front of his chest. He let out a huff as he eyed Jongin.

He was holding on to his hand, and even if all of him was shuffling, he wasn’t moving his hand at all.

Kyungsoo’s eyes shot up to his face.

“What’s wrong with your hand?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me.”

Kyungsoo appreciated the unyielding look in Jongin’s eyes. It was a breath of fresh air to have a patient who wasn’t entirely okay with dealing with his cranky ass.

Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows a little as he finally opened the patient file. An X-ray almost fell out of it as his eyes scanned the page. He then flashed a look towards the X-ray.

The light was bright when he turned on the small lightboard and attached the scan. His eyes flashed over the image.

“What happened?” Kyungsoo asked, turning back towards Jongin.

He shrugged, still holding on to his hand.

“I was at the gym last night,” Jongin said and Kyungsoo _didn’t mean_ to let out a sharp breath. _Figures_. “I was working with some weights. Guess I was tired and it slipped out of my hand. I tried to catch it before it fell but I just ended up hitting my hand. My wrist’s been sore ever since.”

“I see,” Kyungsoo said, setting the patient file aside and taking three steps towards Jongin. He stretched his arm out, waiting for Jongin to take the hint and give him the hand he had hit.

Jongin’s skin was warm again when Kyungsoo’s fingers brushed against it – soft and warm. Kyungsoo held on to Jongin’s forearm with one hand, the other he moved to hold his palm. He turned his hand a little to the side, eyes fixed on Jongin’s face. Waiting for a reaction.

He turned it the lightest bit in the other direction. Still no reaction.

Kyungsoo pressed Jongin’s palm up the slightest bit. And there it was, the reaction he was waiting for – Jongin flinched milliseconds after that, pulling his hand back as much as Kyungsoo’s grip allowed. He hissed in pain, shooting a sharp look up to Kyungsoo. An accusing one.

“Okay,” Kyungsoo ended up saying, sliding his fingers away from Jongin’s palm but still holding on to his forearm under his elbow. “Can you move your fingers?”

Jongin was still very much pouting and glaring at him, but eventually looked down and moved his fingers. Little movements of his long fingers. Kyungsoo vaguely noted how pretty such long fingers looked with the rings he was wearing. It looked beautiful.

“Alright,” he ended up saying. “There doesn’t seem to be a loss of function, so that’s good. You have some small tears in the ligament, but it’s very minor damage. The good news is it’s gonna heal quickly.”

“And the bad news?”

Kyungsoo let go of Jongin’s hand and turned to pull one of the cupboards in the exam room open. He pulled out a bandage as he threw a look over his shoulder.

“It’s always about the bad news with you, isn’t it?” he let out a small chuckle, shaking his head and pulling a stool closer to the bed. He sat down in front of Jongin, too busy tearing the package of the bandage to notice how he had trapped the younger man’s legs between his own, how entirely too close he was sitting to him. “The bad news is there isn’t really a medication to magically fix this. I can give you some general painkillers, but injuries like this take time to heal themselves.”

“Oh.”

“You should rest your hand if possible, for the next 48 hours at least. I’m going to compress your wrist with a bandage to stop you from moving it too much,” Kyungsoo explained as he pulled Jongin’s arm towards himself again, resting it on his own leg as he started wrapping the bandage. He threw a quick look to the younger’s face to see that he was already looking at him, sharp and dark eyes boring into his. Kyungsoo blinked and looked away almost immediately. He tried to ignore the way his heart did something funny in his chest. “If it starts hurting again or swelling, ice it. Get some frozen peas or wrap some ice in a towel and place it on your wrist for about twenty minutes.”

“Alright.”

“Oh, and I’m benching you,” Kyungsoo looked at Jongin again, securing the end of the bandage with a clip. “No gym for the next two weeks. How does this feel? Is it too tight?”

Jongin moved his hand a little then, moving his fingers, before shaking his head briefly. His soft brown hair fell over his eyes and Kyungsoo had to suppress the urge to move those bangs away.

Instead, he cleared his throat, and caught Jongin’s hand lightly, his warm skin feeling somewhat almost too hot against his. He pressed on one of Jongin’s nails, until it turned pale. Good. Circulation was good.

“Alright. As I said, no gym, no excessive moving, and ice packs if necessary. You can remove the bandage in two days. As for the painkillers, if you think you need them then I can write you a presc-“

Kyungsoo was cut off mid-sentence by a loud beeping noise, filling the small exam room, startling both him and Jongin.

Kyungsoo’s breath hitched as he reached to detach his pager from his belt, looking at the screen flashing. He felt his jaw tightening as he pushed the chair back and stood up immediately.

“Is something wrong?!” Jongin asked, voice a little alarmed and mostly confused as Kyungsoo headed for the door in a rush.

“I have to go,” was all he managed to say as he opened the door and started rushing down the hallway. He heard a faint voice behind himself, honey-dipped voice laced with confusion saying a loud ‘_Wait’_ that got lost in the sound of patients and nurses talking, carts and wheelchairs being pushed.

Kyungsoo had no time to wait.

He rushed to the elevators, pushing in the floor number quickly, pressing the numbers on his pager quickly.

He was practically running out of the elevator as soon as it reached the 4th floor of the hospital, where the ICU was.

He bumped into a nurse. He wanted to turn around and apologize, but there was no time for that.

He ran into the room of the patient to a complete chaos, nurses trying to pin the woman down, another nurse was trying to hold her relatives back. Kyungsoo’s eyes quickly scanned the room, before finally pinning on his patient on the bed, her entire body shaking.

_Shit._

“She’s seizing,” Kyungsoo said, pushing his way forward, towards the bed. “Turn her to her side!”

Kyungsoo reached out in a frenzy, helping the nurses turn the body of the woman to the side. The commotion in the room was too great.

“Prepare the syringe,” Kyungsoo told one of the nurses, as he whipped his head around, looking over his shoulder to the other nurse, barely holding the relatives back. “Get them out of here!”

Everything was a blur. The way a syringe was presented in front of him, the way the woman was still seizing under their hands, the way he saw a fury of white lab coats as more doctors ran into the room. He absentmindedly heard Sehun’s deep voice, helping the nurse get the people out of the room. He absentmindedly saw Chanyeol’s large hands joining his and the nurses’ in holding the woman down.

Kyungsoo was about to inject her with anticonvulsants, but it was another nurse’s shrieking voice that stopped him.

“She’s can’t breathe!”

His eyes abruptly flashed up. Just in time to realize the seizure had turned into something else – she wasn’t shaking because of seizures anymore. She was shaking because she couldn’t breathe. Because her mouth was hanging agape, choking sounds leaving her throat. No airflow.

Kyungsoo’s eyes flashed up to Chanyeol. The fellow nodded immediately.

“Intubate her!”

Kyungsoo reached out to help Chanyeol insert the tube. He trusted the fellow enough to perform the intubation. He breathed in deeply.

Seizures. Blocked airways.

“What’s going on?!”

He turned to look at Baekhyun who had just emerged into the room, hair unruly and eyes wild as he scanned the room.

“My pager went off. What’s happening?”

Kyungsoo raised a hand to run a hand through his hair as he saw that Chanyeol was now successfully pumping air into the woman’s lungs. She wasn’t shaking anymore.

Baekhyun’s patient. The one with the brain tumor.

He almost pulled on his hair as he looked at the woman’s face again. She was out of it. Chanyeol’s movements were precise, rhythmical.

“Apnea,” Kyungsoo breathed out shakily. “She had a seizure. She was suffocating. Is she breathing now?”

He waited for Chanyeol to stop moving, to lean closer to the patient, before standing up straight. He nodded.

“She’s breathing now.”

Baekhyun breathed out in relief, a hand flying up to his head. Kyungsoo stepped towards him, his shoulders feeling heavy.

“A seizure,” Baekhyun shook his head, looking dumbfounded. “Where did that come from?!”

Kyungsoo wished he knew.

“Keep her intubated for a few hours. Keep a close watch on her.” He said quietly to the nurses and Chanyeol. “Keep anticonvulsants ready in case she starts seizing again. And get her another CT scan.”

He was just about to walk out of the room with Baekhyun, when the beeping on the screen increased. He turned around in his spot, eyes flashing to the heart monitors.

“She’s breathing…” Chanyeol said with furrowed eyebrows. Kyungsoo pursed his lips, eyes moving towards the monitor. The BPM was dropping. The lines on the EKG were uneven, squiggly even.

“Venticular fibrillation,” Kyungsoo breathed out, his chest constricting. “She’s going into cardiac arrest!”

“But _she’s breathing_!”

“AED!” Kyungsoo was almost screaming. Nurses were scrambling around the room. He was holding the paddles before he knew it. He leaned over the patient – her body still on the hospital bed with Chanyeol keeping the rhythmical pumps of air through the tube. “200 joules. Charge!”

The beeping from the heart monitor was becoming louder in his ears, irregular and messed up.

He places the pads on the skin of his patient, on her chest. His eyes flashed to the monitors, then to the patient. Nobody was touching her.

“Clear!”

He pressed the pads and the body of the patient convulsed on the bed when the electricity ran through her body, shocking the heart.

His eyes flashed up to the heart monitor again. The EKG peaked for a second, then fell back into arrhythmical waves.

“240. Charge!”

He repeated the shocks three times before the waves finally stabilized, her heartbeat going back to the normal range. Kyungsoo ran a tongue over his lips, stepping back with the pads. He handed them back to the nurse.

“Her heart is failing,” Baekhyun said from the side, voice sounding like he was drowning. Kyungsoo pursed his lips. “A seizure and a cardiac arrest. What the hell going on?!”

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked towards the patient’s face. A seizure, followed immediately by a cardiac arrest. A brain tumor patient.

A seizure…

A cardiac arrest….

He bit on his lower lip.

“Her brain tumor. It’s haemorrhaging.”

“What?!”

Kyungsoo blinked towards the patient again. That was the only thing that would explain those sudden symptoms.

“Get her in an OP,” he said, turning to the resident who was standing in the corner of the room, afraid to approach. Kyungsoo bore his eyes at him. “Call Jongdae and Minseok immediately. We need them in the operation room immediately.”

“Are you insane?!” Baekhyun put a hand on his shoulders. “You need to get a CT scan first!”

“The symptoms were too sudden,” Kyungsoo shook his head. “She’s bleeding in her brain and she’s bleeding a _lot_. We need to perform a surgery, we need to drain the blood. We need to remove more of the tumor.”

“But what if it’s not bleeding?!”

“If I’m right, we don’t have time for a CT scan. If I’m right she’ll be dead before the scan is done. And if we get her to an OP _now_ she _might_ have a chance.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

Kyungsoo breathed out. He had no other explanation for a sudden seizure and a heart failure as side effects of a brain tumor.

“If I’m wrong, then we’re _fucked_ and she’ll be dead before we can figure out what’s wrong with her.”

Baekhyun’s grip on his shoulder loosened, as he stepped back. He looked solemn.

“Call the surgeons, Sehun,” the doctor said and Kyungsoo nodded in his direction.

Sehun ran out of the room while the nurses took over the intubation and getting the patient ready for surgery. Kyungsoo breathed in deeply, trying to calm down as he threw a look towards Chanyeol.

He nodded briefly in his direction. _Good job_, his eyes said what he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud now. Chanyeol simply pursed his lips.

“There’s family outside,” one of the nurses reminded and Kyungsoo nodded.

He breathed in, trying to gather the proper words, trying to form them into sentences. He needed to explain the situation quickly, and he needed to get those consent forms signed. He needed to explain that there were no other options right now.

“Doctor!”

He turned around again, eyes flashing up to the monitor in the same time he heard the loud beep. He blinked quickly.

The heart was failing again. The heartbeat rapidly falling.

“The EKG is normal,” Baekhyun said, voice alarmed and loud.

The waves of the EKG were symmetric this time, clear. Baekhyun was right. It was normal. Yet slow. Getting slower. Her heart was _not working_.

“She’s breathing?” he asked, hands reaching out to the syringes again.

“Barely.”

Kyungsoo breathed in as he moved to the patient’s side, hand flying to her neck. The heartbeat was fading. The monitor’s beeping was becoming louder.

“Shit,” he let out a breath as he moved quickly. Leaning over the patient, he placed a hand on her chest, the other in a fist around his own fists.

CPR.

He started the compressions. Keeping his hands firm and steady as he started pumping her chest. Trying to keep her heart going, trying to keep her breathing. Trying to get the oxygen into her heart and brain.

But the monitor was beeping, quickly, the sound making Kyungsoo bite on his lip. Shaking his head.

“Come on…” he growled under his breath, keeping the compressions rhythmical and strong.

“Kyungsoo, she’s dying!”

At Chanyeol’s voice, Kyungsoo’s eyes flashed up to the nurses, to the tube, then to the monitor.

Her heartbeat was dropping. Fast.

He gritted his teeth as he pressed her chest harder. Keeping the CPR going.

“Kyungsoo, asystole!” Baekhyun’s voice was filled with urgency. “She’s flatlining!”

Kyungsoo set his jaw when the monitor’s beep became constant, filling the entire room, piercing his brain.

“Chanyeol, epinephrine!” Kyungsoo growled between pumps. His hands were starting to go numb but he didn’t care. He kept counting in his head. Pressing the chest, pumping it, continuing with the compressions.

“Come on,” he whispered and shook his head, head shooting up to look at the monitors as Chanyeol injected the woman with the medication. “Come on….”

His eyes flashed to the nurses, they were keeping the automatic ventilation rhythmical. Pumping air into her lungs every fifteen compressions.

Then back to the monitor. The line wasn’t moving.

“Come on!” he said, blinking quickly as he kept pumping her chest.

The sound from the monitor was loud, piercing. Mocking him.

Kyungsoo set his jaw tightly as he kept the CPR going.

“_COME ON!_”

Everything was starting to look blurred. The way someone barged back into the room. Sehun’s voice announcing that the operation room was ready for them. His voice faltering at the sight of Kyungsoo giving CPR to the patient, at the sight of the flat line on the heart monitor, at the sound of the continuous piercing sound.

Kyungsoo felt the power leaving his shoulders as his eyes flashed to the unchanging monitor again. No activity. Absolutely no change.

“Come on…” he kept pressing the chest, trying to induce a heart rhythm. Any rhythm. _Something_ that he could shock into working. Trying to get the circulation working.

But the flatline was still flat, and the nurses were shooting worried glances at him, and Kyungsoo shook his head, refusing to stop trying, trying to get the echo of that loud piercing sound out of his head.

“Kyungsoo…” he heard Baekhyun’s voice before feeling a hand on his shoulder. It sounded like they were under water – drowning, distant. “Time of death. 11:23 am.”

All strength left Kyungsoo at once. Everything became blurred, somehow slower, as the nurses started moving away from the bed, as Chanyeol stepped back. As his own hands slid away from the patient’s chest, off the hospital bed.

The entire world seemed somewhat duller as he watched the nurses turning off the ventilation and the machines. As he stepped back and let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in.

He lost the patient.

He lost her.

“I’ll tell the family,” Baekhyun said, and he had an unreadable glint in his eyes. “She’s my patient.”

Chanyeol’s hand on Kyungsoo’s shoulder felt heavy and too large as he patted him quickly, reassuringly, before trailing after Baekhyun out of the hospital room.

Kyungsoo couldn’t even bring himself to look Sehun in the eye. He knew the resident was still standing in the corner, silent and shocked. He shook his head, feeling faint guilt twisting his chest painfully.

“Sehun, get out of here,” he said quietly. “Tell Jongdae and Minseok we won’t need their help anymore.”

Kyungsoo breathed in deeply before escaping the ICU room. He saw Baekhyun and Chanyeol standing in front of the family at the end of the corridor. He could hear the devastated cries all the way from here.

He looked away, a sigh building up in his throat. He shut his eyes tightly.

And then he waited.

He waited with his hands buried in his coat’s pockets, fingers curled in tight fists as Baekhyun and Chanyeol moved away from the mourning family. The doctors were both looking grim, their eyes dark.

“I’ll have to write the report,” Baekhyun sighed out quietly, hand flying up to rub his forehead. “You should go home. Both of you. I’ll tell management what happened.”

Kyungsoo bit on his lip.

“I’m sorry, Baekhyun.”

“Don’t be. You did everything you could,” Baekhyun breathed in, before finally looking up with a little tight-lipped smile. “She was way beyond our help. Risks of the profession.”

Baekhyun walked away then. Kyungsoo knew the heaps of documents and reports that were waiting for him after this unfortunate outturn of events. He knew it was never easy on the doctor to finalize those reports.

Baekhyun was right. The risks of the profession. It wasn’t easy being a doctor.

And it became particularly harder, harsher, when a patient died in your hands. That was the harshest and cruellest thing in the world.

Kyungsoo shook his head, before patting Chanyeol’s shoulder.

“Sehun was in the room.”

“So?”

“So, it’s one thing reading about patients dying in a book, it’s another thing to witness it.” Kyungsoo shook his head. “Find him and make sure he’s alright. Then go home.”

Chanyeol’s nod was understanding and accepting as he left too.

Kyungsoo raised his hands, rubbing his face. He was suddenly so tired. So, so tired.

He couldn’t get rid of the sound of the flatline, of the constant high-pitched, piercing sound. He couldn’t stop hearing it.

The ding of the elevator surprised him when the doors opened and he stepped out into the first floor of the hospital – the heaps of clinic patients unsuspecting of what was happening on the upper floors.

He approached the reception. The girl behind it must have seen his grim expression before he even spoke. She must have put two and two together – him rushing out of the clinic with his pager beeping loudly barely twenty minutes ago, and him returning now looking like this. She didn’t object once when he told her to assign the remaining half an hour from his clinic duty to another doctor.

“Hey!”

Kyungsoo closed his eyes at the sound of that low, honey-like voice. He hung his head down low as he heard the commotion, as he heard someone walking towards him.

“Hey,” Jongin’s voice resounded next to him again, closer. Kyungsoo looked up slowly, to the white bandage on the man’s arm, then up to that golden skin on his chest peeking under the shirt, then up to his beautiful face – eyebrows now twisted in concern and lips parting lightly to let out shallow breaths. “You just disappeared! What happened?

Kyungsoo felt his lips twitching, as he looked away and shook his head.

“Not now, Jongin.”

He didn’t know what his face looked like right now – not good, he supposed. Because the concern in jongin’s eyes only seemed to deepen. Something on his face became clearer – realization.

“I’m sorry,” he ended up saying, voice more quiet and distant. Kyungsoo nodded absentmindedly, ready to walk away. “Are _you_ alright?”

Kyungsoo shot his eyes up to Jongin, expecting to see an oblivious face.

Instead, he was met with a mirrored expression of his own.

“It’s my job.” Kyungsoo replied.

“That doesn’t mean it makes it any easier, losing someone.” Jongin sighed, stepping back and shooting him a concerned look. “Do you want me to give you a ride home?”

Kyungsoo blinked.

He felt the breath getting stuck in his throat at the sight of the genuine concern on his patient’s face as he was looking down at him.

He pursed his lips.

“I don’t even know you.”

Jongin shrugged.

“Maybe that’s exactly what you need right now.”

Kyungsoo closed his eyes.

This was not right. He would be breaking about five different doctor-patient relationship ethics.

Kyungsoo’s eyes flashed to Jongin’s wrist.

“I told you to rest your hand. You can’t drive,” he pursed his lips tightly, then closed his eyes. Trying to clear his mind. Trying to silence that piercing sound of the monitor. He ended up shaking his head. “Come on. I’ll give you a lift.”

* * *

Jongin was mostly silent during the ride, which Kyungsoo appreciated. He supposed the man felt a little awkward sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

He had been his doctor, but practically they were strangers. Kyungsoo tried not to think too much about that, as he kept driving.

Jongin didn’t live far from the hospital – that explained him going straight to their clinic for all his troubles, it made sense. The ride wasn’t long. Maybe ten minutes. With the traffic.

He was about to turn into the street his GPS was highlighting, when he saw Jongin shifting in the seat next to him. Kyungsoo threw him a quick look.

The younger man was looking at him.

“What?” Kyungsoo asked, his voice a little hoarse.

“We’ve met before.”

Kyungsoo threw Jongin another look as the GPS started beeping. He needed to pull over and stop.

“What do you mean?”

Jongin remained silent as Kyungsoo parked the car next to the sidewalk. He didn’t move to get out of it though, instead kept staring at him. That dark look in his eyes was somehow hazy, somehow distant.

“Two years ago. In the hospital.” Jongin said eventually and Kyungsoo blinked in surprise. “We met when they were treating my little sister.”

Kyungsoo furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Jongin looked away from him and towards his hands instead.

“Lung cancer,” Jongin cleared his throat and Kyungsoo pursed his lips.

Cancer. She had been treated in the oncology department. Two years ago, when he was finishing his fellowship in the teaching hospital.

“She was just eleven. And the cancer was vicious, it was-…it was spreading everywhere. Her brain, her liver, her bones.”

An eleven-year-old with lung cancer. With metastases.

Kyungsoo blinked up, clarity filling his eyes.

Because he _remembered_. He remembered the case, he remembered the girl. He remembered the leading physician placing her on different therapies, he remembered countless surgeries.

And he suddenly remembered Jongin.

Younger. More cheerful looking. Brighter.

Hopeful.

He felt like someone had kicked him in the chest.

Because he also remembered the sound of the monitors – high-pitched, piercing, deadly and unforgiving.

His fingers tightened around the wheel of the car as he looked down.

“Her heart failed,” Jongin said quietly. “She died before they could react.”

Kyungsoo pursed his lips. _They_. Jongin was saying _they_, but Kyungsoo had been on this case.

It was _them_. Him, the other fellows. The leading physician.

“And back then, you made the right call.” Jongin said, and Kyungsoo looked up again. Jongin was looking at him with a little, bitter smile. “You told them that maybe a part of the tumor had travelled to her heart. But the doctor couldn’t see anything on the MRI, so he dismissed your suggestion. And after…after she passed, they found the tumor. On the wall of her heart.”

Kyungsoo’s knuckles were turning white, as he avoided Jongin’s eyes.

“If the doctor had listened to you, if they’d operated on her heart sooner, then maybe my baby sister was going to be alive now,” Jongin sighed out. “But he didn’t listen to you.”

“There are risks that we take as doctors,” Kyungsoo said and he sounded like someone was choking him. He made a small pause, trying to collect his voice. “We can’t save everybody.”

“You would have saved her.”

Kyungsoo felt his chest constricting again, guilt multiplying, as his grip on the wheel tightened.

“Are you blaming me?”

“No!” Jongin’s reply was instant. Alarmed, almost scared. “God, no! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out this way. I just-…”

JOngin’s voice drifted to nothingness and Kyungsoo nodded absentmindedly. He wasn’t looking towards the younger man.

He could hear him unbuckling the seatbelt and shuffling in the passenger seat.

The car was silent. He could hear Jongin’s sharp intakes of breath, then the hesitant exhales. Like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know how.

“I’m thinking about taking the MCAT.”

Kyungsoo blinked in surprise as he looked towards the younger man.

“I graduated college just before my sister died,” Jongin said. “And then-…I took a gap year. I didn’t-…I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But now I know. I want to start med school.”

“Because of…what happened to your sister?” Kyungsoo asked quietly, cautiously.

“Yes,” Jongin said simply. “Because of what happened to her, and because of what happens every day to others. I just want to _help_ people the way you do.”

Kyungsoo let out a breath and almost shook his head. He felt like crap after what had happened today. Jongin’s story just now felt like yet another punch to the gut. Yet another lost patient.

He let out a shattered sigh.

He guessed now it all made sense – Jongin insisting on those check-ups and tests, Jongin reading about different types of cancer.

Jongin _understanding_ that look on his face right away.

Kyungsoo ran his tongue over his dry lips, before eventually nodding.

“I’m sure you’ll help a lot of people someday.”

Jongin let out a quiet hum, before finally opening the door.

“Thanks. For the ride.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And thanks for the bandage and all,” Jongin absentmindedly pointed towards his wrist. Kyungsoo just nodded. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

Kyungsoo nodded and watched as Jongin escaped the car. His hand was on the door, hesitating to close it.

Kyungsoo just raised his eyebrows when Jongin leaned down to look at him.

“Doctor?”

“I’m not your doctor anymore,” Kyungsoo sighed out. It was easier this way. He wasn’t treating him anymore, not running any tests for cancer, not for sprained wrists. He had given him a ride home. It was easier to not be his doctor anymore. “It’s Kyungsoo.”

“_Kyungsoo_,” Jongin repeated his name in his soft, comforting voice and Kyungsoo liked how the sound of his name rolling out of those soft looking lips made his heart feel more at ease. “I don’t know what exactly happened today, but you’re a great doctor. You’ve _good_ at what you do. You said it yourself. You can’t save everybody.”

Kyungsoo blinked up to those beautiful brown eyes staring intently at his, and he felt calmer. He felt safer.

Assured, somehow. Convinced.

Jongin’s smile was faint and genuine as he straightened up and shut the door of the car. His wave was little and cheerful, as he turned around and started walking down the street.

Kyungsoo let go of the car wheel, his fingers going numb after keeping such a tight grip this entire time.

And then he just let out a breath, dumbfounded and intrigued.

The high-pitched, piercing sound of the heart monitor was starting to slowly fade.

* * *

The days were passing by slowly. The days slowly turning into weeks. The weeks turning into months.

The routine was the same as always. Patients coming and going, cases piling up, work draining him.

He had just finished yet another dreadful day of clinic duty, when he checked out and headed for the third floor, where his office was.

Before he could even get in the elevator though, a rather short female doctor with dark, long hair gathered in a ponytail and a little child balanced in her hands stopped in front of him.

Doctor Bae. A fellow in paediatrics. Also an ongoing joke with the rest of the medical staff – she really was a total bae. Sweet, caring, always kind.

“Dr. Do!” she said urgently. “Can you please hold this little guy for a minute?! Dr. Kim just asked me to go upstairs urgently and I was just about to get this kid to get an X-ray.”

“You want me to take him to get an X-ray?”

“No,” Irene shook her hand, already handing him a baby. The protests died out on his lips when he was already holding on to the scrawny tiny human. “Just stay here for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

“Wait…” Kyungsoo let out a breath when the woman turned around and took the elevator that he had called. “_Great_.”

Now he was stuck in the clinic, and he was stuck with a baby. He looked down at it. Big eyes staring curiously at him.

Kyungsoo sighed out, shifting on his legs. He looked down at the baby again. Its lips were pulling back in a grimace. Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes a little.

“Don’t.”

The baby let out a sob. A curt cry. Definitely not what Kyungsoo needed right now.

The last thing he wanted was to be stuck in the clinic, with a baby. Let alone, a _crying_ baby. Damn you, Doctor Bae.

He started shifting from leg to leg, trying to silently rock the baby before it would start crying.

He almost protested when a tiny little hand wrapped around his stethoscope, but if it would keep the little guy from crying and throwing tantrums, then so be it.

He was in the middle of counting down a minute and tolerating a baby playing with his stethoscope, when he looked up and saw a familiar silhouette among the crowd in the clinic hallways.

The man was standing some few meters away from him, with his hands in the pockets of his slacks. His soft brown hair was swept to the side. There was a soft smile on his plump lips.

“Hey.”

Kyungsoo stilled down a little, the flabby and chubby fingers of the baby in his arms pulling on the stethoscope.

Jongin was shining. His skin was glowing, he looked so beautiful with the hint of a smile on his lips. His eyes were softly looking at him.

Those eyes shifted to the baby in his arms then.

“Is he yours?”

Kyungsoo scoffed.

“Uh. No.”

Jongin raised his eyebrows a little as he stepped closer. He reached out with a finger and the baby seemed to find that a tad bit more interesting than the stethoscope. It wrapped its little fingers around Jongin’s outstretched finger. Tight little grip of baby fingers. Kyungsoo’s eyes travelled from that back up to Jongin’s face, now so much closer.

“Your patient?”

“No,” Kyungsoo shook his head. “I don’t deal with patients who haven’t grown teeth yet.”

“I see.”

Kyungsoo forced himself to look away from Jongin. Where the hell was Irene? Now he had difficulties breathing and he was pretty sure it was because the handsome young man was standing in front of him after two months.

“Why are you in the clinic?” Kyungsoo asked, just to stop himself from thinking about it any longer. “Let me guess. You coughed and now you’re convinced you have tuberculosis?”

Jongin’s smile lifted his chin as he kept playing with the baby in Kyungsoo’s arms.

“No.”

“No? So no deadly diseases this time,” Kyungsoo hummed.

“Not unless you tell me first, I promise.” Jongin straightened up a little then, pulling his hands away from the baby. IT returned its attention to Kyungsoo’s stethoscope. “I actually had a meeting with one of the residency supervisors of the teaching hospital. I wanted to know about the different opportunities people have after med school for a residency here. In this hospital.”

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. A residency in this hospital. The thought of one day having Jongin as a resident here sounded exciting.

Almost as exciting as seeing a wider smile blooming on those perfect lips.

“I took the MCAT. My scores are…very good, actually.”

“Yeah?” Kyungsoo asked, without even realizing that he was smiling.

“I’m starting med school this fall.”

Kyungsoo had absolutely nothing to do with the achievement of Jongin, he had no connection whatsoever to the younger man, yet he didn’t think he’d ever been prouder of somebody. He felt happy for him.

He was about to congratulate him, to tell him he did great. But the baby in his hands pulled on the stethoscope and brought him back to reality. Kyungsoo ended up smiling.

“God help all your patients,” he joked, and thankfully, Jongin laughed. A kind of relieved type of laugh, soft, cheerful.

“Thanks. Really.”

Kyungsoo felt funny.

The way Jongin was looking at him so kindly, so softly – it made him feel funny. It made his heart do things that he had no medical explanations for.

“I was wondering if you, uh-…” Jongin shifted in his spot, burying his hands in his pockets again as he shrugged hesitantly. “Do you want to maybe go out sometime?”

Kyungsoo felt like he ran out of breath, and it certainly had nothing to do with the baby pulling on the stethoscope around his neck. Jongin was looking at him with anticipation and worry written all over his face, plump lips parted lightly as he expected an answer.

And Kyungsoo?

For the first time in many years he had been rendered speechless.

“I can’t,” he ended up saying breathlessly, his shoulder slumping down in defeat as he uttered out the words. “Even I want to, it would be impossible.”

“Oh,” Jongin let out a breath and Kyungsoo could see he was trying his best to not look disappointed. He could see right through that defeated smile.

He pursed his lips.

“I work in the ER eight hours a day, four in the clinic, six I’m on call and the other six I use to catch my beauty sleep. I don’t have _time_ for dates.” Kyungsoo said with a little sigh. “And neither will you, if you go down that road too.”

It wasn’t a lie. Med school was no joke. And then came a residency, a fellowship, then working shifts all day long. The life of a doctor was not easy.

It was not meant to be easy.

“There’s always time if you make the time,” Jongin said with a little smile. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

Jongin reached out to boop the baby’s little nose before giving him a lopsided smile. He then turned around and started walking away.

Kyungsoo sighed out in defeat, regret filling up his entire chest with every step Jongin took away from him.

He heart the loud ting of the elevator. When the door opened, he saw the pretty doll-like face of Doctor Bae.

And something in his brain shifted.

“WAIT!” he said loudly, all too loudly, maybe startling the baby in his arms and also the patients around him. Even Irene, who was approaching him. He almost shoved the baby back in the paediatrician’s arms, eyes not moving away from Jongin’s back. “Jongin, wait!”

He reached him with five long and fast strides, half-running, half-walking. Jongin was looking at him with slightly raised eyebrows, an _almost_ hopeful expression on his face.

Kyungsoo breathed in deeply, his heart beating loudly in his chest.

“I’m technically on call for the ER right now, but uh-…it’s been kind of quiet today and I _do_ have my beeper.” Kyungsoo said, mostly trying to convince himself, watching Jongin’s eyes widening a little more with every word he spoke. “My hospital hours don’t start until one so I still have about half an hour and we…we could maybe go get lunch in the cafeteria. If you want.”

The hopeful expression on Jongin’s face shifted then, to something softer.

The smile that stretched his lips was beautiful, like the rest of him, and it made him glow even more. It made him shine. A ray of sunshine in the middle of the hospital hallway.

“See? You made the time.”

Kyungsoo let out a breath, adjusting the stethoscope around his neck. He really had.

He threw a look up to the younger man, a playful glint shining in his eyes as he smiled.

“Don’t make me regret it."

** _2 months later_ **

“So I get a patient,” Baekhyun was saying, very hotly motioning around with a fry in his hand. “I read the case file, right? It’s HIV. And I’m like, alright. I get a lot of those, time to work with extra gloves and a mask cause I don’t want none of that stuff near me, right?”

“You’re a doctor,” Minseok scoffed. “You’re _always_ supposed to work with gloves and a mask.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Baekhyun dismissed him quickly. “So I go into the room and like…she’s a nun.”

Kyungsoo squinted a little at the dramatic pauses Baekhyun was making. The other doctor looked around the table with wide eyes, expecting more reactions. Jongdae just shrugged, Minseok rolled his eyes. Kyungsoo threw a look towards Suho and Chanyeol who were both waiting with raised eyebrows for the continuation of the story. Sehun and Yixing were the only ones trying to stifle quiet laughter.

“So you treat her,” Minseok said in a deadpan.

“Of course I treat her,” Baekhyun finally ate the fry he had been waving around. “She’s a nun. I don’t wanna go to hell.”

Sehun let out another snort-laugh, as Baekhyun picked up another fry.

“But you know, maybe she will. You don’t get nuns with HIV every day.” Baekhyun shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t keep her oaths.”

“That’s blasphemy.”

“Nunsense,” Baekhyun said, a little grin making its way to his lips, eyes flashing across the table again, waiting for a reaction to his lame joke. Kyungsoo just stared at him blankly.

He heard Minseok snapping at the other doctor again, which resulted in a little verbal right over patient-doctor confidentiality.

But he didn’t pay much attention to them, because he heard his phone buzzing lightly. It was a text from Jongin. Asking where he was.

Right.

They were supposed to meet for lunch today. Kyungsoo looked up around the table with his colleagues. It wasn’t his fault that they saw him sitting and swarmed around like hungry wolves.

He let out a sigh as he texted Jongin back. Telling him where they were sitting.

Bracing himself for all the teasing to come.

It wasn’t even two minutes later when Minseok and Baekhyun silently looked up simultaneously somewhere behind Kyungsoo, and stopped bickering. Slowly, everybody followed their gaze. Kyungsoo turned his head the slightest bit, just in time to see the young man stopping right behind him.

A warm hand was suddenly on his shoulder and he let out a soft breath, the smile involuntarily pulling his lips back as he looked at Jongin.

His boyfriend’s hair was pushed up, so he could see that entire beautiful face, those plush lips forming a small, polite smile as he looked around their table, before his eyes finally pinned down on Kyungsoo.

His smile became bigger then, softer. _Realer_.

“Hey babe,” Kyungsoo said first, scooting over so there’d be space on the bench next to him for Jongin to sit. He didn’t even care about the little stifle of laughter he heard from the other side of the table. He wasn’t sure if it was Baekhyun or Chanyeol. He didn’t care.

He only waited for Jongin to sit down next to him, before leaning closer and connecting their lips quickly in a soft and very much needed kiss.

Jongin’s lips were always soft and sweet against his – the perfect mixture of perfect that he needed to make him feel alive.

His fingers dancing lightly on his skin, touching his neck to pull him closer – always gentle and warm.

Kyungsoo could kiss Jongin forever – it was better than any medicine. One single kiss could give him the energy to go through the entire day, because he knew that in the evening he’d get to see him again, to hold him again, kiss him.

He didn’t linger too long, even if he wanted to – he didn’t want to give his friends any more reasons to be crackheads. Instead, he placed a hand on Jongin’s knee under the table.

“This is Jongin,” he told his friends. “He’s my boyfriend.”

Technically, all of them already knew he had a boyfriend. Some of them had even met him before. Chanyeol had, and Sehun had, Minseok and Jongdae had also briefly met him once in the parking lot when they were leaving together after Kyungsoo’s shift.

“Nice to meet you,” Baekhyun said loudly, stretching an arm out over the table for a greeting. “I’ve heard a lot of things about you!”

Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes at the obnoxious doctor. Jongin just smiled politely and reached out to hold his hand.

“I’m Baekhyun.”

“Jongin,” his gorgeous boyfriend said quietly, eyes shifting towards Baekhyun. “You work together?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“Oh, you’re an oncologist then?”

“Nope. Infectious diseases.”

Jongin tried to be subtle with the way he pulled his hand back, but failed.

He also tried to be subtle when he rubbed his palm against his jeans. He failed again.

Kyungsoo had to look down towards his sandwich to hide the stupid smile that was growing on his lips. His little, naïve Jongin.

“You go to med school, right?” Baekhyun asked, and Jongin nodded.

“Uh. Yeah. Just started.”

“You have a long way to go still,” the doctor laughed quietly, earning some agreeing hums from the other doctors sitting around the table. “Good luck. You know what you wanna do after that?”

“Uh…not really. Not yet.”

“You can always do infectious diseases,” Baekhyun said, advertised really. “There’s always work for us.”

Kyungsoo threw a quick look towards Jongin. He knew that little crease between his eyebrows. Like he was thinking of a nice way to voice out his distaste.

“Uh…maybe?” he ended up saying with an awkward, little chuckle. “Infectious diseases, that’s uh…that’s really interesting too. I always thought it’s very weird.”

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows a little, munching on his fry.

“Weird? Weird why?”

Jongin threw a quick look towards Kyungsoo, who just shrugged.

“You know. How the human body works, I guess? In order to fight an infection you inject the people with it. Isn’t it weird?” Jongin let out a nervous laugh. “Whoever came up with that was probably up to something evil.”

Kyungsoo blinked in the same time he saw Baekhyun’s eyes quickly shifting towards him. There was confusion filling his usually relentlessly teasing eyes.

Kyungsoo sighed.

_I know_, he mouthed, and Baekhyun shot his eyebrows up before smiling wider.

“Yeah. You’re kinda right.” Baekhyun shrugged. “Maybe cardiology then. Since you proved that Do Kyungsoo has a heart. It might be your calling.”

Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes in the same time Chanyeol guffawed and Minseok rolled his eyes. Jongin just let out a confused breath with his polite smile, before pursing his lips.

“I guess….um,” he turned towards Kyungsoo, eyebrows twitching. “I’ll go get something to eat. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I’ll be right back.”

Jongin leaned down to press their lips again, very briefly, a soft peck before he stood up and moved towards the counters with the food. Kyungsoo’s eyes lingered on him, until he realized that another six pairs of eyes were fixated on him.

He turned around, ready to fight his friends.

“It’s kinda cute how clueless he is still,” Baekhyun noted and to be completely fair, Kyungsoo couldn’t fight that.

He sighed out tiredly, stealing one of Baekhyun’s fries.

“I _know_.”

Kyungsoo turned his head lightly to look at Jongin again – how fluid and graceful his movements were even when he was just picking up food and placing it on a tray. He could stare at him forever. A sight for sore eyes.

“I’m kinda jealous though,” Chanyeol said from the other side of the table. “At least Kyungsoo has a boyfriend.”

“We _know_ you’re jealous,” Baekhyun rolled his eyes, sounding a little irritated. “You wanted to finger him before.”

“I meant in general!” Chanyeol blinked towards the doctor for infectious diseases. “It’s probably nice to be in a relationship.”

A few months ago, Kyungsoo would have disagreed. He didn’t have time for a relationship, he didn’t have the energy for a relationship.

But Jongin was different – he made making the time so worth it. He could rely on him when he was feeling down, he could count on him.

Yes, both of them were extremely busy, Kyungsoo was working all the time, Jongin was busy with med school. The time seemed to pass slower for them, their relationship seemed to progress slower than that of other couples. But it was still so worth it – seeing Jongin, even if it was just for one short hour at lunch or in the late night, it was enough to make his days more colourful and brighter.

So worth it.

He had made it so worth it.

“There goes the doctor-patient relationship ethics though,” Baekhyun noted from the side and Kyungsoo squinted at him.

“Technically, he never was my patient. He just walked in the clinic and I happened to be there.”

“Sweet. Almost like a Disney movie.”

He was trying to think of something smart to shut Baekhyun up, but Chanyeol managed to do that for him when he told Baekhyun that it would be hard for him to find a patient to get with cause he was working with infectious diseases. _That would be gross_, Chanyeol said, _you should look elsewhere_, and Baekhyun got all puffy and huffy.

_Oblivious_, Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and turned around to see Jongin walking back towards them, a try filled with food in his hands.

His Jongin. So handsome, so beautiful – inside and out.

Glowing. Healthy. Loving. Supportive.

The rock he didn’t know he had needed all along.

He was wearing a heavy bag on his shoulder than he put down on the ground before sitting next to him again.

“So,” Kyungsoo leaned towards him, trying not to mind the curious stares of his friends. “How were classes today?”

“Exhausting,” Jongin said as he started unwrapping his sandwich. “Confusing. Kinda gross.”

“Do explain.”

Jongin blinked up when he saw Baekhyun leaning over the table. He seemed curious and Kyungsoo squinted at him.

“Well uh…we were dissecting cadavers.”

“Oh, _fun_!”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. Jongin looked equal parts entertained and scandalized. He couldn’t tell if Baekhyun was joking or not. The sad part was, Kyungsoo couldn’t really tell either.

“And then we had like a quiz on nerves. I completely flunked it, I think.” Jongin sighed, and Kyungsoo reached out to rub his back.

“Why?”

“The open question was about the manifestations of a lesion in the median nerve.” Jongin sighed. “And I completely blanked.”

“Easy! You can’t move your hand.”

“_No_!” Minseok shot Baekhyun a disturbed look. “Stop confusing the boy!”

“What? I’m not confusing him! That’s it…isn’t it?”

“Of course not!” Minseok sounded scandalized. Baekhyun rolled his eyes.

“What do _you_ know?”

“_I’m a neurologist_.” Minseok put his hands on the table in a very office-like manner. “The median nerve innervated the thenar eminence, right. So it carries sensory data from the thumb, pointer and middle finger on the palmar aspect. So a lesion of the nerve would result in atrophy of the thenar muscles and loss of sensation in the three fingers. Among, you know…other things.”

Kyungsoo shot a look towards Jongin, who looked even more lost than he had until now.

“Okay,” he ended up saying, putting a stopper to all chatter on the table. “That’s enough studying for today. I thought you had clinic duty,” Kyungsoo squinted towards Chanyeol, then towards Baekhyun. “And I thought you still had some reports to finish. Should I call Sooyeon or Sooyoung?”

“Who?” Baekhyun seemed genuinely confused, before throwing one more fry in his mouth. “Also, there’s no need to be so cryptic about wanting us to leave. I’m going.”

“Please do.”

Getting rid of the two biggest distractions on the table proved to be efficient enough. The other guys seemed to have enough common sense to excuse themselves and walk away, even if they gave Kyungsoo knowing looks before that.

And then they were finally alone.

“Sorry about them,” Kyungsoo sighed out, sitting closer to Jongin. “They can be a bit much sometimes.”

“Understandable,” Jongin smiled at him. “With what all of you do, everybody needs to let out the stress somehow.”

He was right. Lunch break was always the time for all of them to relax a little.

Kyungsoo was lucky enough to have Jongin too.

“On the other hand,” Jongin laughed quietly. “It’s kind of like cheating. I have you and all these doctors I can ask in case I need help.”

“That’s true,” Kyungsoo nodded, reaching out to play with Jongin’s fingers. He wasn’t wearing his rings anymore.

He couldn’t really do that. The profession didn’t really allow it.

“I’m sure you did great on the quiz,” Kyungsoo leaned forward, placing a soft kiss on Jongin’s cheek. The other smiled a little, raising his shoulder to block Kyungsoo from kissing him again – Kyungsoo’s breath tickling his skin. “You studied so much, it will show.”

“I hope so.”

Kyungsoo breathed in deeply – his nostrils catching the scent of disinfectant from the hospital, and the scent of Jongin – sweet, intoxicating, mouth-watering.

He stopped playing with Jongin’s fingers and instead slid his hand over the other’s soft and warm palm, intertwining their fingers and holding his hand tightly.

He couldn’t wait to get off work tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so...this turned out longer than expected haha 
> 
> If you're wondering why I didn't write much about their relationship, it's because 1) part 3 is coming soon and 2) i briefly mentioned how busy both of them are. So I hope it made sense like this.
> 
> AGAIN, I'm tired after reading so many medical articles, trying to make all this make sense haha I hope it did. 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought, comments are always greatly appreciated ^^ 
> 
> Part 3 is coming soon too~
> 
> Talk to me on twitter @jongnugget :)


	3. -3-

** 5 years later **

Kyungsoo was tapping a pen on his desk, trying to figure out how many coffees he could drink before getting a heart attack. He supposed one more cup wouldn’t hurt.

It was barely eight o’clock in the morning, and he had had a night shift in the ER, he’d barely been able to catch four hours of sleep before he had to come back to the hospital. He’d promised to take over Chanyeol’s clinic hours while he was on some oncology seminar in Japan. A deed he was now so desperately regretting, because Sooyeon or Sooyoung was trying to hunt him down with a stack of patient files.

He supposed it wouldn’t be long before she eventually found him, and Kyungsoo knew a loss when he saw one. He let go of the pen with a defeated sigh and stood up by himself.

Clinic hours were tedious – a never-ending routine of flus and colds, of sores, rashes and sprained wrists.

The peak was a woman with a STD, a woman who was so desperately trying to avoid any treatments. Judging by her crazy look and the blond highlights in her braided hair, Kyungsoo almost felt like injecting himself with barbiturate so he could fall asleep and never wake up. A hippie. Most probably a vegan too.

“But isn’t there some alternative medicine? Like some homemade creams I can make or some foods that can suppress-“

“I know one,” Kyungsoo interrupted her, scribbling down on the prescription pad. “The only alternative medicine that’s been proven to work on venereal diseases.”

The woman was looking at him expectantly and Kyungsoo just stared at her before handing her the prescription.

“Medicine,” he said in a deadpan, not sticking around to watch or listen to the undoubtedly series of protests.

He breathed out a heavy sigh as soon as he was out of the exam room. He threw a desperate look towards the reception.

Just three more hours.

* * *

“-and he’s like, I’m studying community medicine,” Kyungsoo heard Baekhyun’s loud voice before even sitting down at the table. “And I’m like, dude? What the _fuck_ is even community medicine?”

Kyungsoo didn’t regard that with an answer, neither did any of the other doctors sitting on the lunch table. Instead, he looked around the table – not that he would have missed Jongin the first time – just in case. He was jittery and tired. He didn’t completely trust his old eyes.

When he did see, however, that Jongin was not sitting among them, his shoulders slumped a little.

“Hard day?”

Kyungsoo blinked up when a hand collided with his shoulder – a hand that was all too heavy at the moment for someone as tired as he was. Suho was smiling at him with that fake little smile he used on the children in paediatrics.

“_Long_ day,” Kyungsoo corrected, stabbing his salad with a little too much grudge. “I can’t wait to get home and sleep.”

“Oh, yeah, baby,” Baekhyun moaned around a mouthful of a sandwich. “Talk dirty to me.”

Kyungsoo kept zoning off during lunch, especially when his friends started talking about research articles and tests.

The salad he was eating felt tasteless, and he could feel his eyelids heaving down despite the caffeine in his system making his entire body jittery.

And then he felt two hands on his shoulders – not heavy like Suho’s, not harsh, not scary.

The hands he felt on his shoulders were gentle and loving, and he knew right away that Jongin was finally here.

He turned to see his boyfriend smiling widely, shining brighter than any sun in any galaxy.

Kyungsoo immediately felt his body relaxing at the sight of Jongin, the caffeine and the exhaustion long forgotten at the sight of that loving and gentle smile, meant only for him.

“You’re late,” Kyungsoo said, not meaning to sound accusing. It was a more of a statement, that had Jongin shrugging. The white doctor coat was reaching just above his knees, and Kyungsoo only took notice of the green clothing underneath now. Before he could even question Jongin about it, the younger was sliding onto the bench next to him.

“Had to assist at a bypass surgery,” he explained briefly with a shrug. “It took longer than expected.”

“Did you wash your hands?”

“Seriously?”

Jongin’s smile died out as he turned to throw Baekhyun a quick glare. The other doctor seemed quite pleased with his joke, so Jongin just rolled his eyes and looked back to Kyungsoo instead.

A surgery. A heart surgery. That explained why Sehun was also missing from the table. Kyungsoo shrugged, stabbing more salad leaves on his fork.

Jongin’s fingers were absentmindedly playing with his arm, his smile just as blinding as ever.

“Why are you even assisting in surgeries?” Minseok asked, a little sceptical tick to his eyebrows. “Isn’t that like, illegal?”

“Stop embarrassing yourself,” Junmyeon groaned out, throwing the eldest doctor a look. “Just because you are a show-off who never asks for help…Go read the hospital’s policy.”

“Residents can assist during surgery,” Jongin explained with a little smile. “We can even perform surgeries by ourselves, but that’s a little risky.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Minseok raised his eyebrows briefly, before shaking his head with a sigh, stepping out of the conversation. Everyone knew that the neurosurgeon had the most years of practice. Everyone knew he was meticulous about his job – he had to be.

So it was easy for Kyungsoo to imagine why Minseok would rather not trust residents helping him out while he was poking at people’s brains. It was sort of reasonable.

Baekhyun, however, didn’t seem to be ready just yet to let the topic die because he turned around to pester Minseok. Suho and Yixing jumped on his side, while Jongdae, of course, defended Minseok by saying that if the resident screwed up then it would be the head surgeon’s fault. It was kind of true, Kyungsoo supposed.

“You okay?” Jongin’s voice was quiet and gentle and it snapped him out of his daze. He turned to look towards him and the mildly concerned expression on his face. Kyungsoo blinked when Jongin raised a hand to put on his cheek, skin warm against his face. “You look a little pale.”

“Too much work and not enough sleep,” Kyungsoo smiled a crooked smile, a tired one, as he placed a kiss on Jongin’s wrist before the younger pulled his arm back. His smile was understanding, optimistic.

“Well, that’s only three more days,” Jongin said, leaning closer to him, their foreheads almost touching. Kyungsoo could already feel his hot breath on his skin, he could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke up again, in a hushed whisper. “Then we have an entire week just for you and me. No work, no patients. Just us, in Hawaii, with the sun and the beach and all-“ Jongin pressed their lips briefly. “-the-“ another kiss, “-nights.”

It was hard for Kyungsoo not to grab his boyfriend right here and now and to absolutely devour him, but he was surrounded by his colleagues and patients, by nurses and families. He couldn’t do that. Not yet.

However, something started burning in his chest as he looked back towards Jongin, all those promises mixing with excitement in his beautiful eyes and shining with all the love in the world.

Kyungsoo leaned forward, crashing their lips together again, a lock of their lips that lasted longer as they moved lazily together. A gentle touch of fingertips that made his skin burn in their trail.

He was breathless when they broke apart, but his chest felt lighter than it ever had before.

Just three more days.

And then he would have Jongin all to himself.

* * *

Kyungsoo was standing in the middle of his office, hands twisted together as he looked towards the men sitting in front of him.

Baekhyun was squinting, a very deep crease forming between his eyebrows.

Jongdae was frowning, eyes shooting between the screen and his notes.

Sehun seemed beyond tired next to him, raising a hand up to rub at his forehead.

And Jongin was there too, sitting on the chair next to Baekhyun, eyes concentrated on the picture on the screen.

There were a few med students standing in the corner. Kyungsoo’s eyes occasionally shot towards them and he kept wondering why exactly the hospital was sending those kids in even for actual serious cases. He was going to fight management again.

“So what’s wrong with him?”

His eyes flashed around the room when he heard no reply. Some of the younger residents in the corner looked away as soon as he caught their eyes.

“Come on, people,” he urged, eyebrows shooting up. “We have a patient who’s bleeding out. I need ideas.”

“Clotting problem?”

“No, the time test is negative.”

“It could be faulty?” Baekhyun asked, shrugging in Sehun’s direction. Kyungsoo set his jaw. That was always a possibility. A shitty possibility that would set them back and make them lose more time.

“Any other ideas?”

“It looks like arrhythmia.”

Kyungsoo shot his eyebrows up as he looked towards the med students in the corner. He didn’t know the name of the boy who had spoken up but at the sight of Kyungsoo, Sehun, Baekhyun, Jongdae and Jongin, along with some of the other students, looking towards him with raised in disbelief eyebrows, he seemed to buffer in his place, raising his pad closer to his chest.

Kyungsoo took a deep breath to stop himself from blurting out something especially rude. He had to remind himself that those kids were still learning.

Kyungsoo could definitely give a piece of his mind to the person who had once said that there were no wrong answers.

“It looks like arrhythmia?” he asked in the same time he saw Jongin and Sehun exchanging a look. The med student seemed like he wanted the world to zap him away.

“You can’t _see_ arrhythmia because the picture is _not_ _moving_,” Jongin said with a deep voice, an exasperated voice. “It’s not arrhythmia, it’s no-rhythmia. Try again.”

Kyungsoo almost snickered at how annoyed Jongin sounded. He knew his boyfriend had it even worse than the doctors. Management was forcing the med students to follow after the residents – if the leading physicians were in charge of the residents, of Jongin, then Jongin was in charge of those med students. No head of department had the time to deal with stupid questions.

So Kyungsoo felt almost too bad for him, as he turned around in his chair.

“What about a parasite?” Jongdae asked with a defeated sigh. It sounded like he was shooting blindly. “Something could be messing up his blood stream, causing heart problems. Do a biopsy.”

“We can’t do a biopsy,” Sehun frowned. “His blood isn’t clotting.”

“You just said the time test was negative!”

“And I just said it could be faulty!”

“Then do the damn test again,” Kyungsoo frowned, shooting a glare towards his colleagues. “Hurry up, before he runs out of blood to test.”

Kyungsoo breathed out a sigh when he heard chairs moving and people scrambling to get out of the room. He only looked up to see Jongin shooting a look towards the med students and motioning for them to get out.

And then he was the only one left standing in Kyungsoo’s office, the one who reached forward to turn the screen off with a deep sigh.

Kyungsoo’s eyes softened at the black circles under Jongin’s eyes. Just two more days and they would go on their vacation. Just two more days and they could rest.

“Why do you need me on this case?” Jongin sighed out quietly after a little while. He sounded genuinely confused. “I’m a resident, I can’t do much to help you. I can’t contribute in any way that the others can’t.”

Kyungsoo pursed his lips together, as he opened the patient file, noting some more things down, before eventually looking up towards Jongin again. He raised his arm in invitation and Jongin let out a quiet breath as he walked into his embrace.

Kyungsoo’s fingers tightened securely around Jongin’s hand.

“He may have cancer, and he might be my patient, but those blood problems have nothing to do with that. A blood disease could point to heart problems, so I do need a cardiologist on this case.”

“Hence, why you have Sehun,” Jongin shook his head tiredly. “Am I here just because I’m your boyfriend?”

“No,” Kyungsoo squeezed his hand tightly. “You’re here because you maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout all of med school, and because you’re a damn good doctor. I _trust_ you.”

Jongin’s fingers were gentle as he played with his hair and Kyungsoo closed his eyes, his boyfriend’s touch so comforting and loving that he could stay like this forever, all reports and cases forgotten.

But then Jongin’s fingers froze and Kyungsoo cracked his eyes open His boyfriend was looking down at the case file under his fingers, lips pursed tightly.

“Where did you say the cancer was again?”

“Along the urinary tract,” Kyungsoo straightened up a little. “Why?”

Jongin’s eyebrows furrowed a little and Kyungsoo’s grip on Jongin’s hand weakened as he let the resident touch the case, his eyes wandering along the paper and the details.

“You first noticed bleeding in the urine before it turned into internal bleeding,” Jongin was saying, more like mumbling to himself and Kyungsoo was looking at him carefully. “But that could be anything. Stones in the bladders?”

“Tested negative.”

“Ulcers? Blood flukes?”

“It’s not the bladder.”

“Exactly,” Jongin looked straight at him. “What if it’s all coming from renal bleeding?”

Kyungsoo squinted his eyes a little.

“From the kidneys?” Kyungsoo shook his head lightly. “No, it can’t be the kidneys. If his kidneys were bleeding then they’d….they’d fail. They’d collapse. And they haven’t-“

“Yet,” Jongin’s gaze was hard on him as he tapped the case file. “You said the cancer’s along the urinary tract. The area is full of major blood vessels.”

Kyungsoo felt himself stilling down, mouth falling a little agape. He shook it lightly.

“It might have grown, invaded nearby tissue. If it grew into the blood vessels, the bleeding could only get worse. He could die, _and_ his kidneys would also fail.”

“But…the clotting?”

“He’s not clotting because there’s nothing to clot. He’s just bleeding out. And he won’t stop bleeding out until you get rid of the tumour.”

Kyungsoo needed roughly three seconds to process this. Three seconds to consider Jongin’s words, to accept that fact that it was the most rational explanation so far. To consider the fact that if Jongin was right, then the man in the ICU would not live to see the sunrise.

“_Shit_,” he scrambled out of his seat, fingers already flying to grab his pager. “Get a PET scan, stat! And get an OP ready, I’ll find a surgeon!”

Jongin’s nod was solemn and the look in his eyes was dark and determined as he ran out of the office with him.

* * *

Kyungsoo was sitting at the lunch table on the next day with Baekhyun only. Excitement was already pumping in his veins at just the thought of the next morning – of him and Jongin finally leaving for the airport and leaving Seoul behind for an entire week.

“So your patient’s alright now?” Baekhyun asked.

“As well as a cancer patient can be,” Kyungsoo said with a pointy look. “But yes. He’s not bleeding anymore.”

“Now I’ve seen it all,” Baekhyun laughed quietly, shaking his head a little. “Who would have thought that Jongin would give a right diagnostic?”

Kyungsoo’s eyes were deadly when he looked at the doctor for infectious diseases.

“What?” Baekhyun protested with a now louder laugh. “The kid told you he had smallpox when you first started dating. I had to contaminate the entire hospital because he couldn’t distinguish it from chicken pox.”

Kyungsoo tried not to make a face. He couldn’t find facts.

“That was a long time ago,” he dismissed Baekhyun instead with a wave of his fork. “He hadn’t studied medicine before that. Now he’s a cardiothoracic surgery resident.”

“Those are big words.”

“My point is,” Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows. “He’s not the kid who got smallpox and chicken pox mixed up before anymore.”

Baekhyun just shrugged, and there was silence for a few minutes, before the doctor for infectious diseases finally looked at him, unable to keep the curious glint from shining through in his eyes.

“When’s your flight tomorrow?”

“The morning. Why?”

“Just curious,” Baekhyun shrugged, before letting out a dreamy sigh. “And jealous. I wish I could run off to Hawaii for a whole week with my boyfriend.”

“Well your boyfriend ran off to Japan for a boring seminar, so maybe before running off to Hawaii you should talk to him first.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes, obviously not pleased by the fact that CHanyeol had been missing for four days now.

“This isn’t about me,” he ended up saying, before finally leaning forward on the table. His eyes were shining again, this time with something mischievous. “Will you propose?”

Kyungsoo choked on the water he was drinking.

“_What_?!”

“What?” Baekhyun echoed innocently. “You’re going with your boyfriend on a romantic vacation to Hawaii. I get a free assumption pass, don’t I?”

“I’m not proposing,” Kyungsoo said, eyes now glued to the table, refusing to meet Baekhyun’s eyes. He was pretty sure his face was becoming red.

“But why not?” Baekhyun sighed. “You guys have been together for over five years. That’s a long time!”

“Yeah, but I’m a doctor. And he’s also a doctor. Our relationship progresses twice slower than any normal one because _we don’t have any time_.” Kyungsoo mumbled, the hint of regret audible in his voice. “We barely just moved in together. Marriage is completely off the table….for now. It’s too early for that.”

“If you say so,” Baekhyun shrugged, sounding more than a little unconvinced and borderline disappointed.

Kyungsoo just leaned back, refusing to look at his best friend. He wouldn’t let him get to his head.

* * *

It was very late at night and Kyungsoo was on his third coffee keeping him awake as he waited in the ER.

IT was dreadful, working a night shift, but sometimes he had no choice. He had to make some sacrifices if he got to have an entire week off, starting in a few hours.

Besides, it wasn’t really as dreadful when he had Jongin sitting right beside him, face concentrated and illuminated by the laptop screen as he was reading articles. He would take notes every now and then, and Kyungsoo would just stare at him in a daze.

Just a few more hours and they’d be far far away from the hospital.

They’d be in sunny Hawaii, on a warm beach, in each other’s hands. Drinking cocktails, spending time together. Finally indulging in some rest.

His chest felt funny as he kept staring at Jongin, and Baekhyun’s words kept echoing in his head. Ringing loudly, unforgivingly.

Kyungsoo wanted to kick himself.

“I’ll go get a coffee,” Kyungsoo said with a little squeeze of Jongin’s knee. “Should I get you a latte?”

“With extra milk, please.”

Kyungsoo smiled a little as he leaned down to press a kiss on Jongin’s head, on top of his fluffy hair.

He was just about to walk down the hallway to reach the coffee machine, but he heard the commotion before he could even leave.

Jongin’s beeper started squeaking loudly, alarmingly. He turned his head to see the resident reaching down to grab it immediately, concentration taking over his face yet again, with a dark shade as he pushed himself up.

“What’s wrong?” Kyungsoo asked before he could stop himself.

“OP 2. Sehun needs my help.”

Kyungsoo nodded seriously, already heading towards the elevators with Jongin without even being prompted to.

There was a commotion in the ER when they got to the floor. Sehun was walking with a team of nurses, giving quiet orders, his lab coat flying behind him a s he moved quickly through the hallways.

“Sehun!” he heard Jongin calling his name out. The cardiologist turned towards them then, his sharp eyebrows knitted together as he saw them rushing towards him. “What’s going on?”

“Heart attack. We need an emergency bypass in OR 2,” Sehun said with a sharp look and a very urgent stare towards the clock on the wall. “I was just about to go but we have a child from the ICU with atrial fibrillation and internal bleeding. I need to get to him right away. I want you to deal with the bypass, Jongin.”

Kyungsoo blinked a little breathlessly between the cardiologist and his boyfriend. Jongin seemed speechless for a total of three seconds, before he shook his head.

“N-no!...No, I can’t-…I can’t perform surgery by myself!” he said, voice just above a hushed and hysterical whisper. “I’m a _resident_!”

Sehun seemed almost desperate as he threw yet another look towards the clock.

“I don’t have time for this.”

“Let Kyungsoo do it!” Jongin said, throwing a frantic gaze towards him. “He did his fellowship in surgery!”

“And he hasn’t stepped in an operation room ever since then,” Sehun gave Jongin a hard look. “Besides, he’s not a cardiologist. You’re the only person in this building who’s been performing and assisting in cardiovascular surgeries consistently in the past two years. If I wait for a doctor to get here that woman will go into shock and die. And I need to operate on the kid from the ICU, Jongin.”

Kyungsoo pursed his lips when he saw Sehun reaching out to hold Jongin’s shoulder.

“Go scrub in.”

Kyungsoo nodded briefly at his boyfriend when he threw yet another erratic look towards him, before finally setting his jaw with determination and running away with a couple of nurses who were going to help him get ready.

“Kyungsoo?” his eyes flashed towards Sehun. The cardiologist was already walking backwards, ready to run and operate on his own patient. “Can you please go keep an eye out for him? I know you haven’t performed surgeries in a long time but it would be nice if there was some supervision from a head physician. If anything starts going wrong, go in and help him.”

Kyungsoo nod was curt and breathless.

Kyungsoo reached the observation deck with the thick glass walls just when the screens lit up with the cameras. He watched downstairs, at the nurses preparing the patient.

He didn’t even realize he was panting heavily until he saw Jongin walking in the operating room in a surgical gown and gloves. Even though the surgical mask was hiding most of his face, Kyungsoo could see the determined glint in his eyes, the seriousness in his posture.

His hand touched the cold glass when he looked down into the operating room and Jongin finally walking up to the patient.

The cardiology resident looked up to him then, and even if he couldn’t see him through the tinted glass separating them, Kyungsoo knew that Jongin was aware that he was there. That he was going to stay there, no matter what. He wasn’t going to leave.

He nodded, mostly to himself, fingers sliding down the glass as he let out a shaky breath.

* * *

The hours were passing by slowly. Kyungsoo help his breath at every fluctuation on the heart monitors, at every frantic move of the nurses.

He was worried, standing almost glued to the window, following every move of Jongin. He didn’t even realize he was clenching and unclenching his fists every few seconds, the exhaustion completely gone from his body as he tensely kept looking down.

And he waited.

His heart was acting weird in his chest. He was so worried, so concerned that something would go wrong.

Sehun was in another operating room, and even if an emergency arised here, he wouldn’t be able to help. Kyungsoo doubted there was much he could do either. As Sehun had mentioned earlier, he wasn’t a cardiologist. He would only get in the way.

But that was Jongin down there. Jongin, who was in his second year of his residency. Jongin, who was a great and reliable doctor. Yet, he was still just a resident. And putting such a pressure on him, such a huge responsibility….Kyungsoo couldn’t help but worry.

Because if something went wrong then it would weight on Jongin’s shoulders forever. And he didn’t want that to happen to him. Not now. Not ever.

His fingers slid down the glass again, as he shook his head.

Jongin was going to be a doctor. He was going to be a cardiologist. A surgeon. A profession that came with many risks. He knew that he was going to lose patients, eventually. He couldn’t avoid that or stop it from happening.

But his heart ached so much at the thought of seeing his Jongin crushed.

He hoped with his entire being that such a day would not come.

And the hours just kept on rolling by. Slowly, torturously, with Kyungsoo’s lips becoming dry and his chest heaving heavily.

And then Jongin stepped back. His hands were up at the level of his chest, he took a step back. Then another. The attending nurses took his spot then and Kyungsoo blinked quickly.

Jongin threw his head back then, tilting it left, then right. Stretching his neck.

And then he looked straight towards the window. He raised a hand and showed a thumbs up with his bloodied gloves.

Kyungsoo could see that bright smile shining even underneath he surgical mask.

And he finally moved his hand to his own heart, finally relaxing in his ribcage. He let out a soft sigh, his knees going a little weak that he had to hold on to the wall to support himself, to keep himself from dropping on the ground.

He didn’t think he’d ever felt more relieved in his entire life.

* * *

“We will need to keep him under watch in the ICU for the next few days, but he’s now stabilized.”

“Oh, thank God!”

Kyungsoo gripped Jongin’s hand at the exclamation of the family members. He nodded in Sehun’s direction when the cardiologist stayed behind to explain the next steps of the treatment.

“I can’t believe it,” Jongin let out a little light-hearted chuckle. “You spend six hours in surgery and then they thank God.”

“I know,” Kyungsoo smiled, hand snaking around the waist of his boyfriend, fingers tightening around the green surgical scrubs Jongin was still wearing. “It’s unfair.”

Jongin stopped then, turning towards him, regret shining through in his beautiful, _beautiful_ eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly and Kyungsoo blinked. Jongin’s fingers were digging into his white lab coat. “We missed the plane, Soo. I’m so sorry.”

Kyungsoo shushed him quietly, shaking his head. He made sure to hold him tighter as he pulled him closer.

“Don’t be sorry,” he whispered against his skin, hands travelling up Jongin’s arm until they reached his neck. Kyungsoo’s thumb was on Jongin’s jaw and the resident leaned into his touch, eyelids fluttering. “You saved a life.”

Kyungsoo couldn’t help but smile. He pulled the younger down, pressing their lips together in a languid kiss.

“I’m proud of you,” he whispered against Jongin’s lips. “So immensely proud of you.”

Jongin was the one to connect their lips again, in a longer kiss. A deeper kiss. Needier kiss.

Kyungsoo welcomed it all the same, eagerly.

“I love you.”

Those three words were so shallow, compared to the turmoil going on in Kyungsoo’s chest. So meaningless, compared to the depth of the emotions he was really feeling.

But they were the only thing he could say that would convey a millionth of the way he felt for Jongin, so he whispered them again, quietly, before he kissed Jongin again.

“I love you, too,” Jongin said after a little while, his own lips slowly pulling into a satisfied smile that soon died out, replaced by a very apologetic and regretful pout. “But you have been looking forward to this vacation for so long, Soo.”

“Hawaii isn’t going anywhere,” Kyungsoo laughed, bringing his hand down Jongin’s arms until he reached his hand. He intertwined their fingers together gently. “And maybe, if we hurry up and get to the airport, we can catch some connecting flight and still not miss much of our vacation.”

“Yeah?” Jongin’s face was hopeful, and slowly starting to shine again with the force of a thousand suns. Kyungsoo smiled and Jongin let out a little chuckle. “Okay. I’ll go get out of the scrubs. I’ll be right back.”

Jongin didn’t leave before leaning down to kiss him again, fingers lingering on his skin before he turned around and started power-walking away to get changed.

Kyungsoo just looked after him, at his retreating form in the green surgical scrubs, at his soft brown hair, at his wide shoulders. He was radiating happiness, and Kyungsoo felt his heart skipping a beat.

He leaned against the wall, pulling his phone out with the most content smile on his face

He was pretty sure that there were jewellery stores at the airport, but it wouldn’t hurt to check beforehand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL this is it hehe! Give it up for character development!!!
> 
> Thank you for reading this story~ 
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing it because it was something I'd never tried before. I have learned several things while reading articles and different medical cases for this: 1) I'll never become a doctor and 2) my heart goes out to anyone who's trying to become one, GOOD LUCK and GOOD JOB lskfghkdghgh
> 
> I'm joking, of course haha In any case! If you enjoyed this, please let me know in the comments, feedback is always greatly aprpeciated ^^
> 
> You can talk to me on twitter @jongnugget ^^


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